HOW do we develop a life that reflects more of the life God intends us to have? To find the rhythm for our lives we have to look at the life of the Lord Jesus. We have to ask, “What were the things He gave priority to in terms of how He spent His time”?
1. Jesus had a very strong sense of purpose
Jesus knew very confidently what God had called Him to do. One of the reasons why so many of us get caught up in the things we’re doing is because we do not have a clear sense of what it is God has called us to do. We do not know how to say, “No” to the things God has not really called to do. Think of the number of times Jesus said, “I’ve come to do My Father’s will.” Jesus had a very clear mission statement, a clear sense of purpose that came out not from the world around Him but out of a sense of what God had called Him to do. That sense of mission comes out in Luke 4:17-19. Jesus stands up in the Temple of Nazareth and He announces His mission statement. He says, “This is what it is God has called Me to do.” Jesus’ mission statement focuses on bringing glimpses of God’s Kingdom into people’s lives. Everything that He did basically revolved around the fact that He came to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Every action He took, everything He committed His life and resources to really flowed out of a sense that what He was doing was announcing the Kingdom of God and proclaiming what it meant to be part of that Kingdom. As a result of that He knew what to say, “Yes” to and what to say, “No” to as well.
When you look at the life of Jesus, it’s amazing some of the things He sometimes had to say, “No” to. Here was Somebody who literally carried the weight of the world on His shoulders and yet it never seemed He was over-stressed or over-burdened. He always seemed to walk at a very contented pace. All of us love to jump to action when there’s a crisis. But Jesus doesn’t do that. He delayed going to see Lazarus even when the people had come to tell Him that His friend was dying. They were saying, “Come quickly” but Jesus said, “I’m not going.” He waited two days before He went. I suspect He was probably praying and asking God, “What is it You want me to do in this particular situation?”. I don’t think He got up and moved until He knew very definitely what God was saying to Him what He should do. How many fewer mistakes we would make, how many less times we would put our foot into our mouths and how many things we don’t need to be doing if, whenever there was a crisis, the first thing we would do is to sit and wait till God says, “This is what I want you to do” instead of rushing off and doing what we think is the right thing for us to be doing.
Another time that intrigues me is when Jesus comes back from the dead. He had 40 days to prepare the disciples and get the people who had followed Him ready before He came back again. And you would expect, again, that He would be rushing from place to place, that He would be teaching them all kinds of doctrine, and telling them all kinds of things that they should be doing and that He would be very, very busy. Yet, when you look at the things Jesus was doing, He was walking down the road to Emmaus, meeting two people and spending hours, it would seem, telling them the things He wanted them to hear. In another situation, we find Him sitting on the beach, actually making breakfast for His friends. That’s absolutely amazing to me, and I say, “Lord, I wish I was in such a state and had such a sensitivity to Your Spirit that I didn’t rush from here to there, to the next thing, doing all the things I think I should be doing. I need to really take time to listen to God and hear Him say, “Yes, that’s the thing to do” or “No, you shouldn’t be doing that. It’s something you can put off till next week or next month or it’s something you don’t ever need to be committing yourself to.” We will find our lives less pressured if we really allowed ourselves, like Jesus, to be led by the Spirit.
All of us need a strong sense of mission that comes, not out of the culture we’ve grown up in, but a sense of mission that comes out of our study of Scripture and out of a sense of God’s purposes for our lives. Many of us do not have a strong sense of purpose in terms of what God has called us to do. You might want to consider doing this some time in the future. Sit down, look back and ask, “What has God said to me in the past through scriptures? What is it He has said to me through prayer? What are the needs in the world that make my heart ache? What are the things you feel God could really be calling you to do in terms of a sense of His purpose? Then sit down and spend time in reflection and prayer and work out a sentence or a couple of sentences that give you a strong sense of what God has called you to do as part of His mission. Our mission statement comes out of Proverbs 31:8,9 – to be a voice for those that have no voice and to bring glimpses of God’s Kingdom into people’s lives. God can give us a sense of what His purposes are for us and help us reinvent our lives in a way that we can make that possible.
Coming out of that sense of mission, the number one thing that Jesus gave time to was His spiritual life. Jesus knew that the only way He could be committed to the things God had called Him to was to have a strong spiritual life. None of us can follow through and commit our lives and time to the things that God has called us to unless we spend a lot of time working on our spiritual lives. Jesus often drew away to a lonely place to pray, and sometimes He left prime ministry situations to get away to a lonely place to pray. He never made any kind of important decision in His life without spending at least a whole night in prayer. How many less mistakes we would make if only we were willing to spend as much time in prayer as Jesus was willing to do. Decisions like changing jobs, working more hours at our jobs, committing our kids to all those extra-curricular activities – these are things we often do not think of as spiritual decisions. Yet these are the things that take us away from our availability to God in the areas God is prompting us to be committed to. We need to make decisions in every area of our lives prayerfully. Spend a night, a day, a weekend; for major decisions, spend 40 days. That may be overwhelming so a start may be two or three days for major decisions.
2. Jesus spent a lot of time mentoring and developing disciples
One reason why we, especially those in fulltime Christian service, become over busy could well be because we fail to develop a team of people around us. These are people God intends us to mentor, to prepare to follow on the good work He has given us to do. The effective method Jesus used was the “on the job apprenticeship method.” Jesus constantly had people with Him. He was constantly teaching them through parables, through example. The people were constantly learning truths - truths about how He was spending His time, truths about what was important to Him. It was a constant learning experience. One of the things God intends for all of us to have is a team of people we are teaching truths to. Don’t just sit and teach. Interestingly, Jesus didn’t just work with these people. He was doing other things with them too. They were constantly having fun, food and fellowship together. Jesus went to the wedding at Cana to have fun and He made it more fun for the people by turning water into wine for them! We talk about celebrating our faith, yet for many of us, there’s not much celebration in it at all. We’re not doing things together, the things that have a sense of celebration of our faith. We have a lot to learn from the Jewish people and from other people in other parts of the world. Here’s something for us to consider: would we be as caught up in the consumer culture if we had more celebration in our faith? The shopping malls give us a sense of festivity. They know we’re likely to spend more when we go in (and the malls are all decorated up) because there’s a craving in our hearts for celebration.
3. Jesus worked for the purposes of God
Healing the sick and feeding the hungry – these were the purposes Jesus committed His life to. He was committed to doing the Father’s will. He told His disciples to do what they saw Him do. I’ve been challenged as I realize that what God has called us to is not to use our lives for ourselves, but that our lives are meant to reach out to other people. We are to reach out with compassion, with caring, and with the Good News as well. If our lives were more committed to these purposes, we would likely see more people becoming Christians and becoming followers of Jesus.
The world knows the kind of things Christians are to commit their lives to and yet they are so hungry to see us reaching out and caring in compassionate ways that we aren’t always doing. There are many more things God would have us committed to and many more ways He would have us reach out to people with both physical and spiritual needs. I need to be constantly challenged because it’s so easy to slip back and to do the things that aren’t important that take up my time and energy and leave me with no time and energy to do the things God would like me to commit my life to.
It’s not easy to make changes in our lives but we need to make them in order to let our lives be committed to the things Jesus found to be important. The worst thing, I think, is to say we are going to change our lives all at once. This may be possible sometimes, but for most of us, God will intend that we take a little piece and make one change at a time. Gradually, over a period of time we then look at our lives to see how we can become more of the people God intends us to be. Tom and I go on a prayer retreat three or four times a year, not to pray for the world or our friends but basically it’s a time to draw aside and to go to a lonely place to pray and seek God’s direction for our lives. We go to a place far away from home, from the phone, the TV. This is a good thing for couples and for families to do together. Read the Scriptures, take time to listen to what God wants you to commit your lives to for the next few months/years.
Let us learn from the Lord Jesus how to change our timestyle and lifestyle to develop a more spiritual rhythm for our lives.
Christine Sine is a doctor and helped develop and direct the healthcare ministry for YWAM's mercy ships. Christine and her husband, Tom Sine, conducted the "Mega Trends" seminar organized by the NECF Malaysia Research Commission. This article is an extract from the message Christine gave to the women at an evening meeting. |
