Focus and Freedom
Dear friends
We haven't met in a quite a while - partly because so many of us are so busy - I was looking at next week's schedule and realised that every single lunch slot is occupied with a working lunch! Let's fix the next meeting now on 8 May 2008 (Thu) at 12.30 pm on the 20th floor.
I don't know if you recall my sharing at the end of 2007 about how the new year plans were completed by God's grace - click here. Anyway, I realised that it is coming to the end of April and I haven't figured out what the plan for 2008 is! It was an amazing experience seeing God fill in the blanks over that one year, and I would strongly recommend it to all. While it is inappropriate to box in what God can do in our lives, it is also not productive for us to float through life without focus. If you haven't created the framework and space in your own life for God's miracles to take shape, why not consider the following matrix:
Theme ====== Family ===== Workplace ===== Ministry
"Go deep"
We haven't met in a quite a while - partly because so many of us are so busy - I was looking at next week's schedule and realised that every single lunch slot is occupied with a working lunch! Let's fix the next meeting now on 8 May 2008 (Thu) at 12.30 pm on the 20th floor.
I don't know if you recall my sharing at the end of 2007 about how the new year plans were completed by God's grace - click here. Anyway, I realised that it is coming to the end of April and I haven't figured out what the plan for 2008 is! It was an amazing experience seeing God fill in the blanks over that one year, and I would strongly recommend it to all. While it is inappropriate to box in what God can do in our lives, it is also not productive for us to float through life without focus. If you haven't created the framework and space in your own life for God's miracles to take shape, why not consider the following matrix:
Theme ====== Family ===== Workplace ===== Ministry
"Go deep"
==========================================
"Think far"
==========================================
"Ask big"
"Think far"
==========================================
"Ask big"
==========================================
You don't have to fill every box, though you can try. But this could help to give you some focus and actionable points (deliverables!), and also act as a prayer guide. Then you can look back, as I did in 2007 and see how God has wonderfully filled the canvas.
2 other points I thought I'd share for this week (in the interest of brevity, trimmed from the usual 3 points on Sunday :)):
1. Submit to the Lord - your freedom depends on it
Paul says that we were once slaves to sin, but are now slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:18). This seems to me a great truth but one that we seldom value. Our faith constrains us from going our own way. On the face of it, this appears to be limiting, rather than increasing our freedom. But this fails to recognise that our tendency to go our own way is actually evidence of slavery to sin, rather than the freedom to do as we like. It's much harder to break a bad habit (which is usually something that offers short term gratification and long term guilt) than to put effort to obtain long-term benefits. So by way of analogy, while we have the freedom to vegetate in front of the TV instead of going to the gym to exercise, our tendency to gravitate towards vegging out is slavery rather than freedom, as it takes great effort to break out of it! Therefore choose to submit to the Lord so that we may truly become free of the burden of sin and its accompanying guilt. Instead, we shall fear neither the "terror of night, nor the arrow by day" (Psalm 91:5).
2. Stake your life on God's purposes - your (eternal) future depends on it
This is connected to the point above on doing as God wills, and not as we want. 1 Cor 3:12-15 describes the believers' judgment i.e. that all our works of wood and chaff will be burnt up, and that some of us will only escape as through the flames. We should therefore build our treasures in heaven that will not be burnt up.
My pastor suggested a very precise way of putting it: we (the believers) are not judged by what we have done, but by what God has called us to do. So if God has put us in this office, in each of our respective homes, He expects a return in accordance with his intention, not ours. He WILL ask, where is my return on the 608 colleagues I put you in contact with? He WILL ask, where is my return on the cell group friends I gave you? And only those works will survive the flames to be presented to Christ as . Let's determine today to recognise God's purposes in placing us where we are and to fulfill those purposes completely, so that we may confidently say that we have run the race and completed the task given to us (Acts 20:24).
You don't have to fill every box, though you can try. But this could help to give you some focus and actionable points (deliverables!), and also act as a prayer guide. Then you can look back, as I did in 2007 and see how God has wonderfully filled the canvas.
2 other points I thought I'd share for this week (in the interest of brevity, trimmed from the usual 3 points on Sunday :)):
1. Submit to the Lord - your freedom depends on it
Paul says that we were once slaves to sin, but are now slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:18). This seems to me a great truth but one that we seldom value. Our faith constrains us from going our own way. On the face of it, this appears to be limiting, rather than increasing our freedom. But this fails to recognise that our tendency to go our own way is actually evidence of slavery to sin, rather than the freedom to do as we like. It's much harder to break a bad habit (which is usually something that offers short term gratification and long term guilt) than to put effort to obtain long-term benefits. So by way of analogy, while we have the freedom to vegetate in front of the TV instead of going to the gym to exercise, our tendency to gravitate towards vegging out is slavery rather than freedom, as it takes great effort to break out of it! Therefore choose to submit to the Lord so that we may truly become free of the burden of sin and its accompanying guilt. Instead, we shall fear neither the "terror of night, nor the arrow by day" (Psalm 91:5).
2. Stake your life on God's purposes - your (eternal) future depends on it
This is connected to the point above on doing as God wills, and not as we want. 1 Cor 3:12-15 describes the believers' judgment i.e. that all our works of wood and chaff will be burnt up, and that some of us will only escape as through the flames. We should therefore build our treasures in heaven that will not be burnt up.
My pastor suggested a very precise way of putting it: we (the believers) are not judged by what we have done, but by what God has called us to do. So if God has put us in this office, in each of our respective homes, He expects a return in accordance with his intention, not ours. He WILL ask, where is my return on the 608 colleagues I put you in contact with? He WILL ask, where is my return on the cell group friends I gave you? And only those works will survive the flames to be presented to Christ as . Let's determine today to recognise God's purposes in placing us where we are and to fulfill those purposes completely, so that we may confidently say that we have run the race and completed the task given to us (Acts 20:24).
Comments