This generation is doing awesome things and one thing that it has noticed is that the American Dream is not congruent with the church of the risen Lord Jesus Christ! If I have to make a choice, I’m going to pick something that lets my life count. So how do you know how your life counts, that it is significant?
Ya know, usually when I wake up, I don’t know what day it is. Sometimes during the week ill forget what month it is and there are times I forget what day it is. The days and months and even years are flying by faster than ever. What did we do with today? You and I either wrote significance on our day or it drifted away into nothingness. The tragedy of our world and culture today is not that bad things are happening all the time, but that nothing significant is happening every day. God is giving you and I a chance to have a signature on the painting of our life, whatever goes in that frame today which builds into tomorrow and however many hours that has, that is a story and He is giving us the opportunity to write in the end of it.
Maybe your parents ambition was to have a nice house, good job and a family. My family was broken, parents divorced when I was 2 months old, home life was not the greatest and we didn’t have a lot of money. I always told myself that I was gonna get married, stay married, have a great job, nice house, plenty of money and not be my past. Maybe that goes along with what some of your future ambitions are. But whatever they are, at the end of the day when all is said and done, we all wrestle with the same question: Did it really matter? Is it significant?
There is a higher name and a higher glory that brings significance to all that is. That is the message. In order for us to write significance on our lives, there has to be a transformation (gospel message – Col. 2) When the transformation happens, a connection happens. Than we realize that He is the significant one. It’s not me, I’m loved by the significant one, I was pursued by the significant one and I am alive with the significant one. That trickles down and all that I do, in word or deed, I wanna do it all in His name. That is the significance statement that I want in my life.
Intentionality. You don’t live a life of significance by accident. It’s simple but crazy. What is God’s will for my life. The answer is that we all have a unique passion, fire burning in our heart. If you don’t, forget about significance and go back and ask Lord God to ignite a fire in your heart about something! Cuz we don’t need any more people floating in the world like bumps on a log without something burning in their heats about what they wanna offer to the world! I think whatever that passion is, that’s God’s will for our life. Well that can’t be right because when I surrender myself to God’s will, it’s gonna not be fun and great. Right? No. Doesn’t it make sense that God would set you free to pursue your passions? The passions that He gave you?!
Here’s the deal. You’re in a small group and the question is asked “So, what’s God doing in your life?” You hear some of your friends say, “I feel like God is calling me to the north to plant a church!” Another person says “God is calling me to translate the Bible for an unreached people group!” And as everyone shares around the circle, you are stuck on...ballet (because it is the one thing that you are totally passionate about.) Lol! When it comes to you, you say “I don’t know what God has called me to yet.” Now it’s not going to be like when you get to heaven, all the preachers and bible translators and worship leaders and whatnot are in the front and you are in the back in the fine arts section. No! There will be one line marked human beings and its going to be for people to go and stand before the throne and say “This is what I did with my life!” There will be preachers in that line who have nothing to celebrate in eternity because they never wrote significance over their ministry because it was all about them the whole time. Then there will be ballet people come up and there will be truck loads of rewards backed up and they will be told Thank you for ONE, being amazing at what you did and TWO, doing it in such a way that shined a light on the name that is the most significant name of all names.
You see, passion and purpose aren’t the same. Our purpose is to glorify God. Communicating the gospel is not my purpose! There will be no preaching in heaven. My purpose is to lift up the name of Jesus. My passion is to communicate the gospel!
Our goal is excellence! Our goal isn’t to be the best Christian whatever, our goal is to be the best whatever! I don’t want to get business because I’m a Christinan, I wanna get business because I am the best! I mean if my truck dies and there are 2 guys standing there and one says I’ve been in the business for 25 years and know exactly what’s going on and I can help you and there is another saying im a Christian and I’m gonna do my best, I’m gonna go with the guy who has experience. His experience, his excellence, is his platform.
Excellence builds a platform for which you can tell the world about Jesus!
If you can be excellent at what you’re doing now, you can’t be excellent at anything because you write significance over everything you do or you don’t. What would happen if you didn’t show up to work/school today? What would or would not happen? What did I create or offer today? The difference defines our contribution to the world. People will forget what you say and they will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you make them feel.
So, in all that you do and say, write significance on it. You might not be a preacher, but you dont have to be to share the love of God and make every moment of your life count!
