Do not rejoice in this, that
the spirits are subject to you… —Luke 10:20
{CHAMBERS} “In Luke 10:20, Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice
in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of
us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been
saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right.
Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is
not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the
work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple
others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. […] As workers for God, we
must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s
testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through
His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
[…] Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words
with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.”
Discipleship carries with it an option.”
{ELGIN} Do you consider
yourself a “Christian worker” or do you think that only people who are ministry
in church or on mission are the workers.
I ask because if you read some of Chambers devotions you might think
that they don’t apply to you. We are all
Christian workers with a common ministry.
We have all been given the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20) “Therefore, if
anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is
here! All this is from God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message
of reconciliation. We are therefore
Christ’s ambassadors” That means
that we are all workers. Imagine if you went
to a football game to watch and the coach came into the stands and said “Suit
up, I am putting you in!” But you just came to watch the game .. to cheer when someone
gets slammed to the ground … you had no intention of letting that happen to
you! Being a Christian is not a spectator
sport. It’s messy, demanding, grueling at
times even. But we are not asked to “play
the game” on our own. We have the power
of God with us and in us.
I want you to see the bigger
picture. In Purpose Driven Life, Rick
Warren wrote “It’s not about me.” And it isn’t.
We are not saved to tell the world about ourselves … just to be blessed
and happy .. content with our comfort …. we are Christ’s ambassadors .. we
represent Him to the world .. but for some of us, we don’t do that so well. We refuse to get out of our seat … we try to blend
in with the crowd around us … we only want to enjoy the “upside” of being a
Christian … the benefits and blessings without any responsibility toward
God. It’s like a Christian welfare
culture. Lord bless me but don’t ask me
to do anything that would make me feel uncomfortable or endanger my lifestyle
or relationships or require me to do something for You. Think about it .. pray about it .. and repent
if you need to … Then get you game face on (which is to say get right spiritually)
.. the Coach is putting you in!
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