Can you afford to take the risk of being safe? In many situations in life you will be faced with a choice, to follow your deep longings for destiny and purpose, or to follow the conventional expectations of your culture. The latter course is playing it safe, doing things that reasonable, proper, and respectable people do. Yet you were made for a destiny and you will not fulfill it if you only do what others expect. For it is your destiny, not theirs.
When you go to church, do you sing about me or to me? The fact that you refer to your meetings as worship services should suggest a preferred answer. A performance requires an audience, which may be few or many, and the connection between the performer and the audience may be intimate or distant. You refer to your faith as a relationship with me and I invite you to come to as close a level of intimacy as you can tolerate. Let your worship be an expression of this. The singing you do in church and elsewhere may be structured so that other people are listening, or not. In any case consider yourself to be performing for an audience of one.
Do you think that you are living in the end times and wonder what will happen next as the human drama approaches the final act? There are an unlimited number of postulated scenarios, even among those who take my word seriously and try to discern future events from its prophetic passages. Do you find it useful to devote your time to the study of this subject? For I have work for you to do and development work to do in you. If you neglect these to study the end times will you be ready when it arrives? I ask you to trust me to care for you and direct you, to run the race set before you, to be prepared for my arrival even if you don’t now know how it will happen.
Have you ever heard the statement that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? This is so common as to be a cliché, usually spoken when one person finds something or someone attractive that others do not. Your culture thinks of beauty primarily in terms of human bodies, and has narrow criteria for the ideal. Are you willing to take a broader view, and revisit the ‘eye of the beholder’ concept from a greater perspective? How much beauty do you see? You live in a world that I created, and declared to be good. You are surrounded by beauty in everyday things. Do you see it? He who has eyes to see, let him see.
Have you ever faced an intense crisis? This would not be something you sought out, but rather came to you as a disruptive intruder in your life, such as the loss of a loved one, or a job, or money, or health. How do you respond in such a situation? Most people will make every effort to return to the status quo before the calamity. But others find that such events are turning points, serving as wakeup calls to a richer and fuller life. As much as they did not seek out or welcome the devastation, they can see in hindsight that it led to a transformed and improved life. Are you willing to look at these disasters and see what gifts I have for you in them?
Have you heard that it is more blessed to give than to receive? These are some of the best known of my words but you won’t find them in the gospels. Still they are in the Bible. Can you find them? Do you hear them most often when you are being asked to donate money? I declared a universal truth when I spoke this, so it includes money, although this concept has been presented in an abusive way. But as a universal concept it applies to everything, not just money. Ponder this concept and consider how many non-monetary ways you have received. Then consider how many non-monetary ways you have given, and see if you can affirm this truth in a universal way.
Are you content with the best version of your faith that you can figure out? You live in a culture in which thought is highly rated, but if you can figure it out completely, is it really faith? I said that Peter was blessed because he knew that I was the Christ, and flesh and blood did not reveal this to him, but my Father in heaven. How much less did he figure it out on his own? Faith is not in opposition to reason, but is transcendent to it. The natural mind cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit, for they are spiritually discerned, and I will reveal them to you by my Spirit. Are you ready to receive understanding that you didn’t figure out?
Have you ever written and rehearsed a speech in your mind concerning the way you would approach me, with an argument to plead your case? How did that work out for you? This has been done before. Consider the prodigal son, when he ran out of money and came to himself, and realized that his father’s hired servants were better off than he was. He returned home rehearsing his speech, ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your son….’ How did his father react to his speech? Don’t be surprised if I ignore your speech just as his father did. No offense. I’m just glad when you return to me.
Do you favor the separation of church and state? I do, for it was my idea in the first place, that I separated the roles of the priests and the kings, who were not allowed to burn incense at my altar. And so you have two realms, but one need not be hostile to the other, as critics assume. Yet even so you see the influence of one on the other, and nations with similar faith traditions will tend to have similar forms of government. Both are based on their understanding of ultimate truth, and it is unrealistic to expect incompatible visions to endure side-by-side. Is it any surprise that liberty is congruent with the Christian faith? Do you want to live in an atheist dominated country?
Do you understand that there is no distance in prayer? If you hear of a need in a distant place, do you pray with confidence that the effect will be the same as if you were there in person? This is a widely held position among believers today, but it was not always the case. Consider the Centurion with the sick servant. I offered to go and heal the man, but the Centurion understood that this was not necessary; that I could heal him from where I stood. I commended him for his great faith and he was ahead of his time in the comprehension of spiritual reality. Are you prepared for a spiritual move to places that are currently ahead of your time?
