I've being mulling over the statement I posted yesterday (see below or here), especially the following sentence (which is the core of the argument): "..my task in life is to serve to advance the Kingdom of God." I've been mulling because I don't know that I've ever heard it put in such an unadorned and straightforward manner (at least in modern English).
It certainly puts things in black and white, doesn't it? Everything I do, everything I undertake, even everything I think and dream and dwell upon should be in the context of advancing the Kingdom of God.
It's a thought that I shied away from as I thought about it, and am shying away from it right now simply because it is so stark - and puts so much of my own life into the waste bin of eternity. By this standard, how much of what I have done in this life could truly be said to be on behalf of advancing God's Kingdom? Or more correctly, how much of it can be said to be serving myself, either openly or under the guise of "doing the right thing"?
If I just did this for 24 hours, let alone on a daily basis, what would my life look like? What am I now doing that I would scrap? What would I pick up that I am not doing? Interestingly, as I type these lines the response I had expected comes into play: I would quit doing everything I enjoy, and start doing things that I don't enjoy. Not that that is true at all (God is more gracious than we can possibly imagine), but that is my initial (and human) reaction.
Because at the heart of it, these thoughts are really about me - as MacArthur summed it up, fulfilling my own desires, indulging myself, making more money, getting any number of material things that will make me "feel" better or more secure. The thought that I would live my life not in pursuit of my own best interests but that of God's is at best a scary thought, and at worst a condemning one given my own penchant for self-service.
But the real question, the one that I keep weaving from side to side to avoid, is in the presence of God, will all my justifications for how serving myself served God at all be acceptable in the light of doing things to advance the Kingdom of God first? Will I truly be able to say "I advanced Your Kingdom", or will it be "I spent my life seeking to maximize my potential and make the best me; and when possible, advanced Your kingdom"?
In one lies the joy of reward and the pleasure of the Lord, in the other the pain of regret and of opportunities lost.
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