What Will You Consider Success When You are Eighty Years Old?

I have been involved in a lot of things over the years as a pastor and the church I head up is not what we would call conventional. We meet each Sunday in a coffee shop with strangers coming and going, sometimes stopping in for a listen. The project of the coffee shop slash pizza parlor is a strange one but I get to meet some very interesting characters; characters who would never dream of stepping inside a church and who only know the name of Jesus as a curse word. Very few would imagine themselves being served coffee, pizza, sandwiches or ice cream by a pastor. I love it.

Most of these characters lead a tragic life (not in their eyes), so far removed from the truth of life that it astounds me. One gentleman I speak with every morning is visiting from out of the country. We touched on the subject of friendship yesterday. This man, who is close to eighty years of age (looks more like 60) confessed to me that he has no friends. He is a retired self-made business man who doesn't believe in God, or so he says. He has had sexual relationships with hundreds of women but says he has no friends and he sits there jealous of my large family and all the friends I have. I told him the difference is Jesus.

What is crazy for me is that this dear soul believes in re-incarnation but refuses to believe in a Father who loves him enough to pursue him. The difficulty, the wall that has been built up, is one of independence. This man, and many like him, do not want to be accountable to anyone. They want no one to take credit for their life or to hold them accountable for what they do with it, yet so many of them end up empty with a worthless life, no purpose, no reason, no love, no friends.

As this gentleman and I talked I shared my testimony and spoke of the many things God had brought me through. He was amazed to discover how much we had in common except for the foundation on which my life was built upon. He kept repeating that I had accomplished so much because I had confidence in myself and I kept correcting him, that my confidence was in Jesus and the promises he gave me. I told him I had done all that was done by the strength I have in Jesus. He struggled with the concept that I would rely on anything but myself. It was like we were worlds apart and I was speaking a foreign language.

Here was a man, well along in years, still searching for meaning, purpose, friendship and love, looking at me who possessed all that he desired. He had a long history of short-lived empty sexual relationships that now tasted sour to him. He could see in me what he wanted but he refused to accept how I possessed it. My heart breaks for him and I pray fervently that the Spirit will penetrate his heart with a revelation of the truth. There is still hope; he loves my coffee and is around for a few more weeks for more conversation and testimony.

So many of us look to the world and are jealous of everything that others possess yet we possess the greatest treasures. Jesus spoke the truth into our lives when he warned us:

What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself or waste your life? (Luke 9:25)

Don't do it! Don't chase after this world with all of it's false notions of treasure, worth and importance. Don't waste or throw away this precious life you have been given. There is nothing like the friendship we have with Jesus, the oneness with our King and the outpouring of our Father's love. We are already possessed by all that is important and we are given the opportunity to seed that into others. Seeding is what we do best. May it be joy, love, hope for a people who are searching in all the wrong places. May the Spirit use us mightily today to convey the hope of Jesus Christ to those who are desperate for him.

Jesus Is Our Life

Imagine if I told you "Man is something I do but it doesn't run my life"? You would probably think I am nuts. "Man" isn't what I do, it is what I am. Everything I do is shaped by the fact that I am a man. I can't stop being a man and decide to be an elephant. I can't set it aside and just be a man during certain days of the week or times of the day. I eat, drink, sleep, work, and play as a man. It is the same with Christianity.

Christianity isn't something we do, it is what we are. Everything we do is shaped by the fact that we are a Christian. We can't stop being a Christian and decide to be something else for a while. We can't set it aside and just be a Christian during certain days of the week or times of the day. We eat, drink, sleep, work, and play as a Christian. It is not an external religion that tries to impact the soul. It is an inner "being" that impacts our environment.

I will keep stressing this until the day I die, we are a new creation, different than what we were before, changed forever. It is like a chemical change, when molecules are all changed around to form something new. We died and were born again as something completely different, capable of doing things that we could not do before and not dependant on the things that were destroying us. Where once we could not avoid the distractions and sins of this world, now we can.

Jesus is not part of our life. He is not someone who hangs around on occasion who we spend time with. He didn't set things in motion and then back off. Jesus is our life:

When Christ, who is your life, appears,then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)

I don't know if that is sinking in. He is not part of our life; he is our life. I can no more separate him from me than I can separate being a man from me. Everything I think, my perspective, my actions, my reactions all come through Jesus because the life I live I live in Jesus. I gave up my independent life when I died and was raised in Jesus. There was a chemical change that changed everything in me. I am not what once I was, and either are you.

This means we have to stop living according to the pattern of this world and live by the direction of the Holy Spirit. We must allow Jesus to impact every part of us. The Bible is not a set of rules to be followed; it is a bunch of road markers to let us know if we are on the right track. The Word of God is not some old document or history book; it is written on our hearts that we would live it. If we do not see in ourselves what we read in the Word it means that the relationship is not right and we need to deal with it. It is not God working outwards in but inwards out because Jesus is our life.

If Christianity remains a thing of conformity to you then you do not know Jesus. If it is a prudish thing that seems out-dated then you do not know Jesus. If Jesus is something you think about on occasion and a reason to go to church then you do not know Jesus. To know him is to be "chemically" changed forever, having died to what once you were and are now alive in him. If Jesus is not your life now then you will have no eternal life on his appearing.