Life gets in the way of Life

Background

You may read the title of this post and think to yourself “what is he talking about?”, well it is just as the title says. There is no subliminal message or deep meaning to this, it is simply what it says on the tin… Life gets in the way of Life.

John 10:6 – 18

Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flocks. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want and to also take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”

Although I have largely included the majority of the scripture above from a contextual perspective, there are many hidden gems that pertain to the subject of this writing. I started by saying that “life gets in the way of Life”; when we look at life as it stands, the first thing that generally comes to mind for most people is career. Most people think about how they are going to earn a living so that they can “live” in the most broad sense of the term. Living can be put into two categories:

1.     The essentials

2.     The trimmings

The next thing on the agenda for most people is social, whether that be family or friends. We are generally social creatures so we seek out relationship, companionship and intimacy with others. In some cases we derive our sense of identity from how others perceive us so we strive to nurture those relationships that reinforce the identity we seek to establish.

For most people this is where it ends. As time has passed people have become less concerned about the final area I want to talk about which is community. We have lost our sense of community for the most part. It has become rare for people to know their neighbors and for communities to look out for one another. I will seek to demonstrate how this final part fits into life and also plays a bigger picture in actually receiving and living Life.

Living for a living

As I said before, this can be put into 2 categories:

1.     The essentials

2.     The trimmings

Let’s start with where people are which is the thought of career and earning a living. We are in a society that measures success by the amount of material possession that we can accumulate. Now this is nothing new, it is actually something that has existed since there was a means to measure wealth. I think that the moment sin entered the world man developed an inherent nature to compete and want to out-do the person next to him. Like most things in this world we created systems and structures that allowed us to segregate people into classes. We created a hierarchical pyramid society where those who had the most wealth sat at the top of the pyramid and those with the least sat at the bottom. The bulk of people fall into the lowest level of the pyramid and the smallest percentage of society are at the top layer of that pyramid.

This structure has allowed those at the top to remain wealthy and to control the masses who aspire to the same level of wealth.

These systems, structures and hierarchies mean those who are at the top have their money work for them and those at the bottom work for their money. Let’s not get it confused, neither one is a winner in this circumstance as both are still slaves to their money. One is a slave to chasing money and the other is a slave to retaining it.

I don’t want people to assume that I am saying that you should be poor and not enjoy life. I am saying that you shouldn’t make money the driver of your life and get caught up in the pursuit of it or have it become the central focus of your life. I believe that work is from God as this was something he gave to Adam in the garden of Eden.

Genesis 2:16

The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 

But Adam’s work was not created to be his life. The bible goes on to immediately tell us that God said that it is not good for man to be alone and sought to find for him a companion. It also alluded to the fact that God spent time in the garden with Adam and Eve after he created them.

God created man for relationship and most importantly, relationship with himself but this is the part where we are all significantly lacking.

We all need to work; that is clear and that has been established as something that God instituted. Why did God give Adam work? It wasn’t to fill his time or to work him constantly to the point where he had no energy or ability to function in any relationship with anyone. Work was provided so that he could cultivate the land and eat from the fruits of the trees which he tends to.

This brings me on to point 1.

 

The Essentials

Work was given to man to allow him to cultivate the land and for it to reward him with fruit for his labor. We now work to earn a living so we can buy food and clothing, provide ourselves with shelter and to afford the things we need in this life to survive. Once we have a sufficient amount to cover these things we use our money or the fruits of our labor to provide some non-essential commodities that interest us, which I call the trimmings.

The essentials in my opinion are the things that you just cannot avoid and need to live a normal life. Everyone needs food, clothing and shelter. These essentials come with other bills and costs but generally you can wrap all of these up in this essentials category.

Irrespective of what century it is, the essentials have not changed. You can look back over history and the basic needs of man has not changed. What has changed is the increasing desire for luxury goods and opulent living.

I have heard so many pastors reel of the scripture from Philippians 4:19:

And this God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

As with all things, there is context to this scripture but the context is rarely preached as it doesn’t usually line up with the agenda of the sermon.

Now I am not bashing anyone in this post. I am making a point that most sermons I have experienced where this scripture has been used have had an underlying tone of raising money for some specific purpose and getting people to go above and beyond with their giving. For me it is synonymous with phrases like “you cannot out give God” or “give and it shall be given to you. In good measure, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing”.  Some people have made it a skill to use the gospel for fund raising. As many believers fall into the lowest level of that hierarchical pyramid, the current construct plays on the aspiration of this lowest tier and is abused by a lot of religious institutions. You will find that number of churches in under privileged areas far exceeds those in the more affluent areas. People who have less tend to hope for a better life and some have been led to be believe that the more money they give to the church, the more God will bless them. Let me make this clear, God does not need your money. What need does a God who made this entire earth and the universe it sits in have for money? Answer, nothing!

The church needs the money to support the community and those who are ostracized by society at large.

Because we have become accustomed to the materialistic nature of the system we believe that success in life is now determined by what you have and what you have accumulated over the course of your life. This couldn’t be furthest from the truth. God intended for work to provide you with the things you need to survive.

 

The Trimmings

So what about enjoying life and living it up? Is this against Gods plan? The simple answer is no!

Over and over again, we have seen that God blessed people in the bible. Abraham was blessed abundantly, so much so that the people who were with him were blessed because they were in his presence.

Genesis 2:5-6:

Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.

Job was another individual who was extremely blessed by God.

Job 1:1-3:

There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was a blameless man – a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had 7000 sheep and 3000 camels, 500 teams of oxen and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was in fact the richest person in that entire area”.

We cannot forget king Solomon. Solomon was the richest king recorded in the bible and his wealth is said to still be unrivalled by todays measures of success. He is the original billionaire.

So as we can see, there is nothing in the bible that says that you cannot have the trimmings but there is a warning against one thing; the love of money.

1 Timothy 6:3-10:

Some people may contradict our teaching, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. These teachings promote a godly life. Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up jealously, division, slander and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy.

Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

It’s amazing how relevant this text is today. People have made the pursuit of all things bigger and better their life goal and it is at the cost of Life.

Let me be clear, I chastise myself as I write this because I am also guilty of allowing my work and business to take over my life and my time; it is the reason why you have not heard from me in a while so I am not writing this from a ‘holier than thou’ perspective but more as encouragement from observations I have made in my life and in the lives of others around me.

Why were these men of old blessed abundantly? The answer is clear and it has always been. It was even given to us in scripture. The saying that you cannot out give God is true. God has immeasurable blessings to bestow on each and every believer but it is not based on apples for apples. You cannot buy your blessings from God so do not be misled to believe that you can. 

Matthew 6:31-34:

So don’t worry about these things, saying ‘what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything that you need.

So don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

The men of old were more interested in pleasing God and seeing his Kingdom come. They were focused on living as God intended for them to live. The description of Job was the most impactful for me. He was a blameless man who lived above all things with integrity and feared God. He reverenced God. He saw God for the all-powerful, awesome, magnificent, omnipotent and omnipresent God that he is. His focus was on living in a manner that pleased this God he feared so much that it resulted in God blessing him beyond his comprehension.

So it should be with us. Work to earn a living to meet your needs, but put all your passion and effort behind living to please God. Don’t do it because you expect to be blessed, do it because this is what our God deserves. Take it from there and see where that journey takes you.

Relational Living

Our social lives are now lived out on the world wide web. We broadcast almost everything we do and some people have turned broadcasting their entire lives into a business. Each to their own in my opinion but it is just that, my opinion.

What I am trying to say is this, whoever you may be, there is an innate desire to have relationships with others. This innate desire is a result of our creation. We were created to commune with other and with God but when sin separated us from God this desire became corrupted. Our primary purpose for existence was to worship God, not out of obligation but free will. 

On a side note, I find it interesting that when you google the phrase ‘worship out of free will’ you get a lot of comments from atheists who have an issue with the existence of God and having a choice to worship or not. I will look at it this way, if you are in love with someone all your heart but they do not reciprocate this feeling but must marry you because they have no choice in the matter, are you or the other individual happy? Of course not. No one is happy being forced to do something or receiving something that someone doesn’t really want to give to them. If you have decided that you do not want to believe in God and want to live as you please then why are you bothered about whether it is free will or not? You don’t believe there is anything there so you can do you and forget about it. In that sense you are exercising your free will to not believe. You have been presented with the information and you have made your choice on your path. It is the same thing as someone telling you that cigarettes cause cancer. You can believe it or not and then exercise your free will as to whether you smoke or not. If you get lung cancer you take that as your lot. My point is this, free will is just that, FREE WILL to decide what you do or don’t.

Back to my topic. Since many have decided that they do not want to be in relationship with God there is a void, which many will not admit, but there is. People seek to fill these voids with relationships with other people, or activities or endless pursuits but these things were not designed to fit that void. You can’t put a square peg in a round hole. We spend so much time trying to fulfil our own plans and desires for our lives. Trying to determine and establish our own identity and purpose but we have an owners manual we can refer to which can help figure out some of the intricacies of life. As it says in the background scripture, Jesus came so that we can enter into a rich and abundant life. Jesus is the gateway to Life itself and Life is God. By entering into relationship with God through Jesus Christ we enter into Life and receive Life abundantly. This abundant life flows over and above what we can imagine and flows into every area of our lives.

God has a desire to see each and everyone of us become the best version of ourselves. In order to do this, we have to be plugged in to him and learn to seek his will for our lives. I think that the idea of worshiping God and seeking his purpose and will for our lives makes some think that they are in fact giving up their right to make choices. You have the choice to make decisions now and you will retain that right but what you get is insight that allows you to make better choices.

It is like picking a food item with no nutritional information vs picking up a food item that is sufficiently labelled with all the nutritional information. You have a better picture of what you are getting.

I also like to look at it this way. We have things we are passionate about, we have people we care deeply for and so on. These things are based on traits that have been built into us so when we enter into relationship with someone who loves us more than we can even comprehend and ask for him to guide us and align us with his path, we will only attract more of these sorts of things into our lives.

God know what we are passionate about because he created the desire. What is missing is that we are not fulfilling the purpose for which he put the desire. Trusting him and seeking relationship with him reveals this in more detail and helps us to thrive in our passions.

Our relationships with others improve because we learn about the grace of God and how we extend that to other so the people who used to irritate us don’t actually irritate us that much. The people who were hard to love become easier to love because of grace. You find that people gravitate towards you because they see there is something different and special about you.

Community

We as a people have become so detached from each other that we are missing out on doing so much and changing the world we live in. The resources in this world are so abundant but people die of hunger and thirst. There are people with wealth equivalent to the GDP of some of the 3^rd world nations yet people are not moved to help each other.

I cannot tell people how to live and I can only pray that each individuals heart convicts them on where they can do better but I base my community spirit and interaction on this scripture.

Matthew 25:34-40:

The King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then the righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it for the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

I do not want to labor this point but community is so important as a body of believers. I ask you not to look at this as your obligation but more as a duty of care to those around you. If you appreciate the grace and mercy that has been shown to you by God then extend that grace and mercy to those in the world who do not have much or who the world does not care about.

Circumstance is does not discriminate and anyone can be subject to a change of fortune. Look upon those who are around you and see them as Christ sees them.

Life does not come from what we have, it comes from what we do, who we do it with and who we do it to. I implore those of you reading this to make way for Life by making way for God and making room in your life for others. Let God fill the voids in your life and use you to make a difference in other peoples lives and you will see the transformation it causes in your personal life.