Your Mission

 

On September 17, 1966, a television show made its debut and would go on to enjoy a seven year run,.  The show chronicled the adventures of the IMF; the Impossible Mission Taskforce.  This team of government spies were specialists who were assigned “impossible missions” on a weekly basis.  The show was called “Mission Impossible.”  Each week, the team would listen to the unseen “Secretary” describe some terrible situation that had just occurred somewhere in the world.  He would explain the dangers and what needed to take place to correct the situation.  The Secretary would always offer up the assignments with the following words: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” and then he would go on to explain the current week’s mission.  Though the mission seemed totally impossible, it was always the choice of the IMF as to whether or not they would accept the assignment.

 

In each of our lives, we have been given a mission that we are to fulfill.  That mission, “should you choose to accept it,” is to help spread the glory of God throughout your life and throughout the world so that all people, everywhere, may come to acknowledge the Creator and Redeemer as Lord and God.

 

God Himself, has created you with this purpose in mind; that you would join His cause in spreading His glory throughout the earth.  He longs for you to willingly and eagerly get your life into a position where you are free to share His greatness and His worthiness to those with whom you come into contact.  He calls you to do whatever is necessary in your life to fully and enthusiastically participate with Him in this most grand mission in all of life.  He invites you to “come and follow” and as you do, you will find that you cannot help but gush “streams of living water”  from your life.  He delights in your obedience, as you take His yoke upon you, learn of Him, enter the narrow way, and set your light upon a hill so that all may see it.

 

You may say, “There is only one problem with all of this.  I do not know exactly what I am to do or how I am to do it.”  Honesty before God is always a good thing. It allows us to be real with Him so that in turn, He may be real with us.  To help you find your way, you need God’s blueprint for your life.

 

Your Blueprint

 

Before a contractor overturns one shovel of dirt from a lot when building a house, he studies the blueprint to find out exactly where the foundation is to be set.  Not even one tree can be removed until the blueprint clearly specifies the location, not only of the foundation, but also of the driveway, the sidewalks, the patios and porches, and the trees to be left standing.

 

When was the last time you flew on an airplane?  Since you are reading this, I trust that you had a safe landing.  While you were 35,000 feet in the air, did you stop and think, “I am so grateful for the architects and engineers that designed the blueprints for this plane in such a way that it actually flies like it is supposed to”?  My guess is that it didn’t even cross your mind, but aren’t you glad that someone put a great deal of thought into the blueprint for the plane before the workers started to assemble it?

 

If you lived in Houston and you wanted to drive to Chicago, how would you know how to get there?  How can you be sure that you wouldn’t end up in Atlanta?  The reason that you can be sure that you will make it to Chicago is because before the highways were ever built, someone spent a large amount of time planning how all of the major roads would connect to each other in such a way that a person could follow the signs from road to road, highway to highway, state to state, and end up in Chicago, or just follow the instructions that their phone gave them.  There was a blueprint, and it told the construction workers exactly where to build the roads.

 

Why is it that so many of the Christians you know live their lives without referring back to the blueprint?  Why do they attempt the most important mission of their entire lives without a clear and defined plan of action?  Why will they spend more time thinking about how they will clothe themselves for Sunday morning church, than they will ever spend thinking about how they will fulfill the purpose of their lives during an entire month, not to mention a year?  How successful can they be if they have no specific goals for how their lives are to fulfill the purpose for which they were created?

 

It’s time to sit down at the drawing board of our lives and develop a blueprint which will lead us, not where we want to go, but where God calls us to go, past the fluff and superficiality of our shallow “me first” Christianity with which our over indulged, selfish culture has become so comfortable.  If our churches are ever going to make a significant impact upon our communities, and if we, as individual believers, will ever genuinely influence the lives of those around us, then we must call a “time out” from our busy church calendars, and our own hectic schedules, and seek the Father’s heart on how we can pursue Him in such a way that our hearts are captivated with the presence of God, our lives are enthralled with the greatness of God, and our wills are surrendered to the purpose of God.

 

Since the purpose of your life is to honor and glorify your Creator and Savior, then your blueprint must lay out a plan whereby you may walk in such a way that you fulfill that purpose.  The book of Acts records a marvelous statement about King David.  Chapter 13, verse 36 says, “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers, and his body decayed.”  That is probably not a verse you have committed to memory, but maybe it should be.  If we can focus upon the first part of that verse, then we can be reminded of God’s calling upon each of our lives.  David served God’s purpose in his generation.  Wow!  May you and I be as faithful to our calling as David was to his.  David fulfilled the purpose for which he was created.  That is how God defines success; to have fulfilled the purpose for which you were created!  It’s time we believers quit striving for the success this world offers, and begin pursuing success on God’s terms.  It’s time that fulfilling the purpose for which we were created became the central focus of our lives, and the central focus of the Church’s teachings. Agreed?

 

Your blueprint must help you, on a daily basis, get closer and closer to the point of fulfilling your purpose.  We Christians often live our lives for such temporary things.  Somewhere along the way, our attention gets diverted and our focus gets sidetracked.  We lose sight of the high calling of God upon our hearts and lives.  Our purpose loses its rightful place of prominence, in our hearts, to our pleasures.  The passion and enthusiasm of the early days following our conversion evaporate into only a dull and distant memory that we so easily dismiss as immature exuberance.  We lose sight of God’s love.  We don’t search the scriptures the way we once did.  Our prayers become less and less frequent.  Our church attendance may slip.  The world becomes more precious, and our spirit becomes more apathetic.  What was once black and white has grown strangely gray to us in our new state of lethargy.  Our skills of rationalizing our sin have reached new heights, or new lows, as the case may be.  The attitudes of our hearts come frightfully close to the words of the serpent, “Did God really say…?”  Like Jesus’ disciples, we seek our own greatness.  Like Ananias and Sapphira, we invent new ways of testing the Lord and lying to the Holy Spirit.  Our method of operation shifts from submission to deception, and from dependence to independence.  Building our kingdom takes precedence over building God’s kingdom.  Over time, self has inched its way upon the throne of our hearts to where there is no longer any room for God.  And we wonder why God is silent in our lives and in our churches.

 

The Main Thing

 

If you are like me, then most of the blueprints that you have ever seen are quite complicated.  They are extremely detailed and seem to cover every possible angle of the project for which they were designed.  But developing a blueprint for your life does not have to be an enormously detailed project.  In fact, in this case, you will be better off if it is not extremely detailed.  The more and more we get into details about how we are to live our lives, the more likely we are to lose sight of the overall goal which we were seeking in the first place.  You have probably heard the saying, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  That is a philosophy that we will adopt as we consider our own blueprint.

 

In chapter 1, we discovered that God’s purpose in creating us was for us to help glorify Him in all that we do.  In chapter 2, we agreed that our own selfishness is what usually keeps us from living the life that God has called us to live.  The problem is that, on a fairly consistent basis, we choose our ways over His ways, and our wills over His will.  So, in developing a blueprint for our lives, we need to design it in such a way that we overcome the problem we acknowledged in chapter 2 so that we can fulfill the purpose we discussed in chapter 1.  This should not be as difficult as it might first appear.

 

The Outside – In Problem

 

If it is my selfishness that keeps me in a state of disobedience and apathy, then I must find a way to banish selfishness from my life.  Modern thought would tell me to develop some rules and regulations for my life and then follow them.  If I could do that, it would seem, I could overcome my selfishness.  And that is how most Christians deal with their sin.  They develop rules to try to control the actions of their body.  But as Paul writes, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”  Paul couldn’t have said it any clearer.  Our own rules that we set up for us to obey, though logical and seemingly appropriate to help us deal with our sinful behaviors, lack any real and meaningful power to accomplish the purpose for which they were intended.  Creating more rules and regulations just doesn’t get the job done. It is a practice in futility.

 

The problem with this approach to sin in our lives is that it is an “outside – in” approach.  That is, we develop rules and regulations on the outside of our lives to attempt to deal with sinful issues and behaviors that live on the inside of our lives.  That will never work, and most of us can testify to that.  Jesus knew that this approach would not work.  He said, “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean’.  For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.”  The people of Jesus’ day struggled with the very issues believers struggle with today.  The question we all seem to ask is, “How can I overcome my sinful behavior?”

 

And we will shortly answer that question.  But before we do, read again the words of Jesus about what makes someone “unclean.”  Note that some of what we might call today, “major sins” are mentioned right beside some of what we might call “minor sins.”  I am not advocating the two separate classes of sins; only calling attention to how believers tend to view them.  Jesus never made such a distinction.  To Him, sin was sin.  Why do you think that was the case?  My belief, as we discussed in chapter 2, was because when looking at sin, Jesus doesn’t look at the behavior as much as he looks at the heart that prompts the behavior.  Now, do some sinful behaviors have more serious consequences than other behaviors?  Of course, but that is not the issue here.  The issue here is that Jesus labels both the murderer and the person who slanders as “unclean.”  He does the same with the sexually immoral and the person who has a greedy heart.  Again He makes no distinction between the adulterer and the arrogant person.  All are equally “unclean.”

 

Years ago, there was a commercial starring Bo Jackson, a famous multi-sport professional athlete.  The commercial said, “Bo knows baseball” and “Bo knows football.”  Dear friend, Jesus knows “clean” and “unclean.”  He categorizes all who sin as “unclean.”  The simple reason that we do not do the same is because we believe that we are better than those who commit, what we call, “serious sins.”  In our minds, there are sins that are acceptable; namely ours, and sins that are not; namely other people’s.  Jesus sees that heart as in as much need of cleansing as the heart that has led a person to murder or adultery.  The two hearts were the same, even though the results were different.  We would do well to adopt His uncompromising view of sin.  It would help us to avoid it more often in the future.

 

The Inside – Out Solution

 

Now, back to the question, “How can I overcome my sinful behavior?”  Please understand that Jesus is not only concerned about the heart behind the behavior.  He is definitely concerned with the behavior as well.  But if we stop the behavior and keep the sinful heart, it will just be a matter of time until the behavior returns.  Jesus told of the evil spirit, who left a man, but returned and said the “final condition of that man is worse than the first.”  Though the man from whom the evil spirit had departed was described as “swept clean and put in order,” commentator William Hendriksen reminds us that “harmlessness is not the same as holiness.”  You can probably name twenty “harmless” Christians for every holy one that you know.  Far too often, we in the church consider the two equivalent.  The man had been set free from an evil spirit, but he had not filled the void that the spirit had left, so that when the spirit returned, there was nothing to keep him from occupying his former place of residence in the man’s heart.

 

If we are ever to overcome the sinful behaviors that can plague us, even as Christians, we must stop trying to change from the “outside – in.”  Real change, change that lasts, has to occur on the inside of our lives first.  Our behavior changes because our heart changes, not before our heart changes.  Our actions flow out of who we are on the inside of our lives.  Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”  What we do flows out of who we are.  How we live is a product of our hearts.  Our behaviors come from our nature.  The lives that we live proceed forth from the character that we possess.

 

Toward a Renewed Blueprint

 

Since the underlying cause of all sin and sinful behavior is selfishness, the love of oneself; then to overcome sinful behavior, one must love something or someone more than he loves himself.  Genuine love is the most powerful force of motivation known to man.  We have seen numerous movies, or read books, in which one person sacrifices his or her dreams or even himself or herself so that the object of his or her affection might reach some new, previously un-reached, height.  The sinful person loves himself more than anyone or anything else, thus, his sinful, selfish behavior.

 

The one who loves God more than he loves himself will be motivated from the inside of his heart and life to live out of that love, in such a way that God is honored and glorified.  Therefore, your blueprint as a believer will be the same as my blueprint.  Our blueprints are the same because our purpose’s are the same; to glorify our Creator and Savior.  Our blueprints for living must simply and powerfully state that, “I will seek to love God more than I love myself, on a daily basis, and thereby honor Him in my life.”  If this is my blueprint; if this is what drives all of my thoughts, actions, words, and behaviors, then I will not need a list of rules and regulations to help keep them in check.  My blueprint, as the central roadmap for my life, will continually guard my heart from turning to the left or the right.  My behavior will be monitored, not from the outside of my life with rules, but from the inside of my life with affections.  If I genuinely love my God more than I love myself, then my heart will seek to honor Him, to the exclusion of my selfish desires.  I will then evaluate every potential situation in light of my blueprint; my desire to love God above myself.  I will weigh every decision based upon my blueprint.  I will consider every word and action because of my blueprint.  My authentic love for my God will lead me into certain behaviors and away from others.  It will cause some decisions, which I may have struggled with in the past, to become crystal clear as His light shines upon it.  It will compel me to live my life in such a way that God is pleased with my actions and my attitudes.  

 

My love for Him will cause a deep yearning in my heart to share His goodness with others.  No longer will guilt or fear be my motivation for witnessing.  When love for God abides in my heart, I begin to look for ways to share His goodness with lost people.  This blueprint will lead me in the way of purity when temptation knocks at my door.  This love empowers me to live a holy life, not because I am forced to do so, but because I long to do so.  When I love God more than I love myself, my heart has jumped off of the fence of complacency, on which it may have resided for years.  Christianity, which may have been a religion into which I was forced to abide, becomes a relationship through which I am propelled to live for His glory.  Instead of finding joy in my own selfishness, I now find joy in living for His honor.  My satisfaction comes through knowing that I have made choices and have exhibited behaviors that glorify my Father.  This is what Jesus referred to in John 17:4 in His prayer, when He said, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work that you gave me to do.” 

 

Living with this as our blueprint, we discover that what Rick Warren says is right on track, “It’s not about you.”  It’s all about Him and living for His glory.  And in that simple discovery that was always right before our eyes, we find the freedom to really live for Him, and thus, really live.  It is your blueprint, “I will seek to love God more than myself, on a daily basis, and thereby honor Him in my life,” that makes all of this, not just a possibility, but an actuality; not just a dream, but a reality.

 

Your Obstacles

 

No matter how biblically sound your blueprint may be, you can be sure that there will be obstacles to living the life that may currently be only a distant dream in the most remote part of your imagination.  Robert Burns in his 1785 poem, “To a Mouse,” penned the line that we translate, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  What is it that so often causes those well thought out plans to “go awry?”  The answer to that question would be the single word, “obstacles.”  Obstacles are what so often get in our way and ruin our perfect plans.  Without obstacles, life would be much easier.  But such is not the case.  In fact, Paul tells us not only that God has allowed certain trials in our lives, but that He has “destined” them into each of our lives.  

 

You know that obstacles lie ahead of you.  You didn’t expect this new journey to be obstacle free did you?  God is working growth into our lives and growth only comes through obstacles.  The Christian path has many obstacles of many different sizes and shapes, which all of us who travel the path, must navigate over, around, and through.  The truth is that you have a very good idea of what many of the obstacles will be that will present themselves before you.  In fact, you know them for your life better than anyone else.  The chances are very strong that the obstacles you face in the future will look very similar to the ones you have faced in the past.  This is especially true as it relates to temptations.

 

Some, like the rich young ruler of Luke 18, may find that their greatest obstacle to following Jesus is their possessions.  Others may find that it is their own family who keeps them from entering the kingdom of God.  Some, like the Pharisees, will discover that their desire for power will be an insurmountable obstacle.  There will be those, like Demas, who loved the world more than the cause of Christ.  Others will bow before their gods of sensual and sexual desires.  But all of us will find that our biggest obstacle is our own selfish heart.

 

Despite what we think, or have been taught by well meaning Sunday School teachers, or even misinformed ministers, obstacles are not our greatest barriers to fulfilling the purpose to which we have been called.  In fact, instead of being a barrier, they may be a pathway.  We shall discuss more on this idea in chapter 11.

 

No, our greatest barrier does not lie on the outside, but on the inside.  Our greatest barrier is not without, but within.  It is not someone we do not know at all, but someone we know all too well.  Our greatest barrier to fulfilling the purpose for which we were made, is the selfishness that dwells deep within us all.  It is your own heart, my friend. It is my own heart.

 

Your Future

 

Now, pause for just a moment and consider something which you may not have ever given much thought.  Put the book down, and consider the question, “What do you want your Christian life to look like in 10, 20, or 30 years?”  

 

Do you want it to look just like it does now?  Do you want to still be struggling with the same issues with which you struggle now?  Do you want to be fighting the same battles then as you are now?  Won’t you want to be living a much more powerful life at that time?  Don’t you think you will want to be living a much more passionate life at that time, characterized by a more intimate fellowship with your God?  Can you envision your current struggles with sin being a thing of the distant past?  Can you foresee a heart that is really on fire for your King?

 

Don’t you believe that you are going to want to be able to list a number of people on whom your life has had a significant impact?  Won’t you desire to have been used by God in a mighty way in the lives of those with whom you were in contact on a regular basis?  Wouldn’t it be a shame if, at that time, you couldn’t name a single name whom you personally led to faith in Christ?

 

Growing up, I loved to play basketball.  I lived for the game.  I stayed late most days after practice, and then practiced every night even more in my own lighted backyard, in both extreme cold and blazing heat.  Between my junior year and senior year of high school, I went out with a friend to play a pick up game at a high school about 25 miles from where I lived.  The coach at that school invited me to come and play for him during my senior year.  That would mean that I would have to move, and still not live in that school’s district, lie about my address (this was before I became a Christian), and leave all of my friends with whom I had gone to school the previous 11 years.

 

With some serious thought, and since I felt like I wasn’t getting a fair shake where I was, I agreed to change schools for my senior year.  We ended up winning our district, and I was named district MVP, and a 3rd Team All State player for the class we were in.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely.

 

Leaving my good friends was a high price to pay for a 17 year old, but my goal of what I wanted drove my actions.  Too often, we fail to count the cost of our dreams.  If we do count the cost, we may let the cost overtake our dreams as we become paralyzed, and the opportunity to reach out, and take hold of our dreams, slips away.  We often consider the future goal not worth the present cost.  And that is exactly what keeps us living the lives we are living, instead of the ones we truly desire to live.  We are afraid to let go of what we have so that we can take hold of that which God has for us.  Our hands are full with the present so that we cannot grasp the future.  Instead of reaching for the prize that awaits us, we cling to the “here and now” that binds us.  We can never “become ourselves” because we never can let go of our false selves.  God has an awesome future ahead of you, but to find it, you must lose yourself.  You have to love what He calls you to more than you love what He calls you away from.  You have to want what He has for you more than wanting more of what you have already had.  You have to trust that the place to which He calls you is far more beautiful than all of the places that you have already been.  You have to long for Him more than you long for yourself.  And you have to love Him more than you love yourself. And like Peter, you have to get out of your boat!

 

It’s Your Choice to Leave the Wilderness

 

Have you ever wondered why you are not further along in your Christian life than you are?  Most of us have wondered that at one time or another.  And the answer for you is the same as it is for me, which was the same as it was for the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness before they crossed the Jordan River to inherit the Promised Land that God had sworn to give to them.  Remember that it took the Israelites 40 years from the time they were set free from slavery in Egypt to the time they crossed the Jordan.  This period of time is characterized as the “Wilderness Wanderings” for the Hebrew people.  But why did it take them 40 years to gain what God had promised them?  Why did it take almost 15,000 days to inherit what God was more than willing to give to them?  The answer is not as complex as it would seem.  The reason it took 40 years for the Israelites to inherit God’s Promised Land was because they wavered in their allegiance.  Their loyalties shifted back and forth from Egypt to Canaan.  Egypt, to the Israelites, represented safety and security, reliance upon self, and faith in what was known.  Sure, they were slaves in Egypt, but they were safe, and their stomachs were full.  Canaan, on the other hand, represented uncertainty, reliance upon God alone, and faith in what was unseen.  So their allegiance wavered between wanting to be the people God called them to be, and the safety of wanting to return to Egypt because at least there, they knew the issues they would face.  In their moments of weakness, when the safety of Egypt seemed fond to their hearts, they would forget about God, and seek their own ways, and live for their own temporary pleasures.  All the while, God waited for them to say “No” to Egypt, and “Yes” to Canaan.  It could be said that He waited for them to “become themselves.”

 

So often, we as Christians wander in our own wilderness as we try to figure out exactly how we are to live this Christian life.  Like the Israelites, things from our pasts pull at our hearts and enslave our emotions, calling us back to the habits and the bondage of our own “Egypt”.  And yet deep in our hearts, we hear the voice, although faint at times, of our King calling us to run from our pasts and fight for our hearts as we march forward to the high calling that awaits us; that of freedom and a new life because our hearts have been liberated from the duplicity and vanity of living life on the fence.  We hear the call and we want to abandon the past with all of its lies and false promises.  We want to strive to live the lives that we believe God has called us to.  And yet, “Egypt” continues to call to our hearts because, honestly, there were some things there that we haven’t decided for sure that we want to leave behind.  If we could, we would take some of those things into the new land with us; but we know that God will not allow that.  And so our hearts waver.

 

And thus, we have a choice to make.  The choice is, “Will I choose, from this moment on, to love God more than I love myself?”  That is the choice that leads to freedom, to life, and to that place where God calls each one of us.  While, in reality, this is a daily choice that must be made, it must first be made in one bold, life committing decision, in which we willfully choose to begin the process of walking out of Egypt and walking into Canaan.  You may need some help to walk out of your “Egypt.” But you are the only one that can make the decision to start the process.  That is why, just before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, God said to them, “…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life…”  We use that verse today and apply it to abortion.  God said that to the Israelites just before they inherited the Promised Land, and He was encouraging them to walk in obedience.

Do you want to leave the wilderness?  It really is your choice.  So go ahead and put the book down for a few moments, or days, and dream about the person you want to become.  Really, in your mind, leave the here and now of your daily grind that has you bored to tears because you know that you were created for something far greater than you currently experience.  Look to the future and consider the vastness of all that your Heavenly Father calls you to.  Imagine the lives you want to touch.  Contemplate fighting, not only for your heart, but for the hearts of those whom you love.  See yourself as the overcomer that He calls you to be.  Envision the battles for righteousness to which He calls you.  Visualize the friends and loved ones whom He provides you with the opportunity to impact.  Anticipate the joy and the ecstasy of living a holy, righteous, and fruitful life for the kingdom of your God.  Go ahead, dare to dream of all that God wants to do in and through your life as He empowers you to “become yourself,” and as you live to reveal His glory through your life!

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