Your Life’s Investment

Jesus talked about a man who found a great treasure in a field and became so passionate about the worth of that treasure that he took all the resources he had and bought that field.

This is a story about passion. What is your life’s passion? What is the one thing that so drives you that if you could do without sleep, you would spend every waking moment doing that thing? Jesus had an overwhelming, driving passion to do the will of the Father and he had a deep, continuous revelation of what that will, purpose, and mission was.

I’ve heard it said recently that the distinguishing quality of all very successful people who have made their own way in life, is their intense focus on one thing. Wealthy people are not diversified, they are focused. True success in life is not a big bank account, but the privilege of getting up every day and doing that thing that we have a passion for.

We have to choose if we will focus our life investment of our love, time, energy, money on God and his purposes. God Himself desires to be our primary passion. He should be the thing we think about continuously.

Do you realize that God is thinking about you right now? You are his consuming passion. The creator of the universe became a man and went to the cross to buy you back from sin and its curse. You are His great treasure hidden in a field. He bankrupted Heaven to purchase you. Is He your passion? Is He your everything?

Several years ago, God spoke to my wife and teenage daughter in a dream….. the same dream, the same night,  about adopting a baby from China. I resisted the idea for 5 years. The Lord dealt with me in a very clear way and I got on board and we applied to the adoption agency for a baby. There were many forms to fill out, a lot of money spent, and then the day came when a photo of our future daughter came in the mail. We put it on our refrigerator with a magnet and looked at it throughout the day every day and felt so much love for a baby we had never met or touched. Heaven has a kitchen. I know this because there will be a great wedding supper there one day and Jesus is getting it ready. God has our picture on his refrigerator in Heaven. He loves us so much. May you receive a revelation of the worth of His passion and love for you. May His love impact you so deeply that you sell out everything else and go after Him. May He be your life’s investment.

The Timeless Power Of Creativity

Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, people with the ability to create something of value to others.  Perhaps the great need of the hour is not really money, a new politician to save the day, or even more jobs.  I suspect that the real need of the hour is creativity.

Creativity can open doors to a new world of fantasy to escape into or birth  an entire new industry that creates jobs for individuals and spins off other side industries.   In the case of  Walt Disney, a struggling cartoonist saw a mouse run across the floor and created Mickey Mouse.  Out of that came an international entertainment empire which includes film studios, theme parks, world class resorts, and television networks. 

The publishing industry is an industry that depends upon creative persons.  Books are powerful.  Their influence outlives the authors to shape future generations.  Regardless of your opinion of the Bible, no one can deny the worldwide influence of one book that spans most of known human history.  

We live in a world beleaguered with serious problems:  energy shortages, world hunger, homelessness, pollution, and poverty.  Solutions come with new ways of thinking.  People with new ideas are problem solvers.  We desperately need financiers, social workers,  scientists and inventors who can think creatively.

Someone has said that our most important work is when we take time to think.  Creative thought can become reality.  Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s technology.  But we live in a busy, noisy world and serenity is rare.  Some of our most profound leaders in the future without doubt will come from those who work at creative thought.  Some of the greatest world leaders have been farmers, shepherds, fishermen, and sailors.  Take a day and devote yourself to serious thought – who knows?  You just might solve the energy crisis or even world hunger.

My Visit To Mayberry

My friend, Vick, bought a farm in rural Eastern Tennessee, and then another one and before long he was buying and selling property in the mountains for a living.   He is presently living near a little town called Sneedville, a modern day Mayberry.   It is the county seat of  Hancock County with 6000 residents according to the local motel owner.   The town itself has about 1200 people.  Research of 2000 and 2005 census information gernerally supports these figures.

For several years Vick had his wife, Dianne, had invited me to come and visit.  I found some discount airline tickets and made plans.  A few weeks later I was in some of the most beautiful mountains I  have ever seen.  The local farmers, they are almost all farmers, cannot figure out why anyone would want to build a house on a mountain top.  They value the bottom land, rich and fertile, to grow things on.   The 20 mile views from the tops of the mountains are a common thing to them.  It’s just where they live.

Everyone I spoke with in Sneedville prided themselves in being from a place that doesn’t change.   They distrust the outside world.   Many of the locals are convinced my friend, Vick, is from the Mafia.   Vick has a strong New England accent that could almost be mistaken for a New York accent.  One day, while re-fueling the truck in town, I asked the clerk if she could break a one hundred dollar bill.   She replied it would be no problem and then she sighted Vick.   She took the bill, looked at it and handed it back to me and said, “This is stolen money, I can’t take it.”   She tried to make up a story about an ink mark on the bill and then with her mind obviously made up, she said, “All I can tell you is this is stolen, and just get it out of this county.” 

The local churches take tradition to a whole new level.   One kind pastor I met requires that long dresses be worn by the ladies and the men must wear long sleeve shirts with white tee shirts underneath.   Why?   So the men’s nipples won’t show through the shirt.   As they cling tightly to strict holiness tradition, their teens and young adults are becoming meth addicts and dying.   One local told me, “We don’t go for that new-fangled religion around here.”  In the same breath he went on to share the problem of teen drug addiction in their county.  He just couldn’t connect the dots.  If you attend church in Hancock County, you’d better bring some conservative clothing and a King James Bible.

We had breakfast at Hardee’s with Junior, the local constable and Sneedville equivilant to Andy Taylor.   Twelve to twenty farmers gather there each morning for biscuits and gravy and to talk.  Things whispered in the ear can travel with lightening speed through the rural community.    

Many of the farms go back multiple generations in the same family.   One man described the impact of the recession on the locals like this, “No one told the milk cow that the economy was slow, no one told the chickens that the economy was slow, no one told the garden that the economy was slow.”   They barely notice the recession because they live independently as they always have and as their fathers and grandfathers did.   We can learn something from the farmers about focusing on the tasks at hand and not letting the media and circumstances dictate our world view.

It takes time to win the trust of mountain people.   They don’t warm up right away.   In years past, peddlers would come through the mountains and many of them were swindlers and con artists.   Over time, they learned to keep outsiders at arms length.  It’s not that they are unfriendly.  They are very friendly and welcoming, but there is a huge difference between friendliness and being a trusted friend.  But, if you have the time, they will open the door a little at a time to  let you in.

My week in “Mayberry”  was relaxing and a step back in time to a place where people still wave at the other vehicles going by and are never too busy to stop and talk.  There are things I learned from the mountain people (positive and negative) that will enrich my future.  But, there are also things that they can learn from me.   In a strange kind of way I realized that as citizens of this world, we all need one another and we are never independent of one another.   Here are 7 things I learned during my time with the mountain people:

1.  Do what you know and do it well.

2.  Don’t allow fear and distrust of the unknown rob you of your future.

3.  Tradition makes a great conversation piece but a cruel taskmaster.

4.  Don’t allow the media and economic conditions to dictate your world view.

5.  Never get too busy to stop and talk to people.  People are more important than our schedules.

6.  Stay connected with your community.

7.  Never lose the ability to dream and to change.  Never allow the beauty of the mountain top to become a common thing.

Start Over

This is a brand new day. No matter what you have done in the past, God gives us the opportunity to start over. You start over by coming to God in prayer and asking forgiveness (cancellation) of every sin of the past. Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, paid our death penalty, so we could be forgiven. God’s justice requires the penalty of death for sin. But the only one who could pay that debt is someone who is sinless. Jesus is the only one who qualifies to pay our penalty, because when Adam sinned in the garden of Eden, sin came upon all human flesh. So we were born in sin and the only way out is through Jesus. Pray this prayer: “Father God, because of the gift of your son, Jesus, when he paid the full price for my sin on the cross, I ask you to come into my heart and be the Lord of my life and forgive me for every sin I’ve ever committed.” Give God your whole life, not just a little part of your life.

Once you accept Christ, there are three basic activities that will help you grow spiritually. Prayer, bible study, and fellowship:

In prayer, you can ask God for anything. He answers us according to his will. God is your spiritual source of strength. It’s like eating or plugging an appliance into an electrical socket. God is your food, your electricity, but you have to plug in. If you sin, immediately ask God for forgiveness and strength. God loves you like his own child, because you are his child.

As you study the bible, you learn what God is like, his likes and dislikes. As you prayerfully read the bible, you will grow in the knowledge of spiritual things and in your relationship with God. Start with a modern translation, such as NIV or NLT. The Gospel of John is a good place to start and then the book of Ephesians. You can get a one year bible that will give you an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, a passage from Psalms, and one from Proverbs each day. At the end of a year, you will have read the bible through.

Fellowship is simply gathering together with other believers. Like prayer and bible study, this activity must be scheduled and disciplined or it probably won’t ever happen. This is how we prioritize our lives by setting aside blocks of time for spiritual activities. The best way to do this is to join a local church. This will give you accountability. Jesus invested much time to relationships and discipling other believers. Look for a church that teaches being born again, or accepting Jesus as the Lord of your life.

This is the most important decision a person can ever make. Will you live your life for yourself or live for God? There is a real heaven and a real hell. We will all choose which of the two places will be our home for eternity.