Few of us ever give too much thought to the fact that God’s gone to a lot of trouble to make us who we are today, to get us ready for what He has for us to do, but let me tell you: God has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to make you who you are today.

THE TROUBLE GOD WENT TO

Every morning, you and I get up; we look in the mirror; we men have a shave, looking at ourselves each morning in that mirror bleary-eyed; I guess you women no doubt are putting a bit of makeup on your face because somehow, that’s what society’s conditioned you to do, and as we stare at ourselves in that mirror, every morning day after day, we give precious little thought to how incredibly we’ve been made – how wonderfully we’ve been made.

Without you ever having to think about it, through a complex set of neurotransmitters, programming that has never been achieved by humans, chemical reactions and feedback loops so complex that endocrinologists are only just beginning to understand how it all works, your body keeps you alive; controls your temperature; nourishes every cell; manages waste; fights off infection; allows you to stand upright; gives you reflexes to catch a ball moving at over a hundred miles an hour, and that’s just the beginning!

You have desires, emotions, thoughts, memories so complex as to defy comprehension and understanding. Behind those droopy eyes staring back at you from the mirror each morning lies an incredible human being. Well may the Psalmist write:

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Absolutely you are. You are incredible! And I for one simply don’t have enough faith to believe I evolved out of some primeval amoebic slime, to be what I am today. I don’t have enough faith to believe that! If you do, good luck to you, but I don’t. Just the information encoded onto our DNA; the complexity of that; the uniqueness of that; this complex starter set that’s been bioengineered into every cell of your body, that makes you who you are. Each one of us is different, and that’s incredible! I can only look at that and whisper, “God”.

As I said, most of us don’t give any of that a second thought these days. Our self-image, somehow how we see ourselves, is influenced predominantly by social feedback: What other people say about us; what other people think about us; how we see ourselves compared to other people; the degree to which we in our own minds match up to the images of beauty and success and wealth, that a commercially-driven advertising industry with a strong profit motive dangles under our noses. So many people on the planet today don’t think all too much of themselves, but I’m here to tell you that God has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to make you who you are today, and to put you where He’s put you today.

And not just you and me; we’re going to kick off today looking at Moses in the Old Testament. Look, here’s the picture. Because of Joseph, you know, the one of technicoloured dream coat fame, the Hebrew nation has ended up in Egypt. It all started with a famine. You can read about it in Genesis 37-50. I mean, it’s a cracking yarn and a fascinating read, but now Joseph is long-dead; there’s a new Pharaoh on the throne in Egypt, and the Hebrews … well, they’re breeding like rabbits, so the Egyptians are getting really worried, concerned that the Hebrews might end up taking over the country, so Pharaoh comes up with a brilliant idea to kill all the baby boys born to the Hebrews. That’s where Moses’ story begins. Let’s have a look at it. Exodus 2:1-10:

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it up, she saw a child. He was crying, so she took pity on him. ‘This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,’ she said.

Then his sister said to the Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Yes.’ So the girl went and called the child’s mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses because she said, ‘I drew him up out of the water.’

Now quite possibly, you’ve read this story before and like your own story, never thought all too much about it, but just stop and think. Moses goes on to become one of the greatest leaders that Israel has ever had, leading his people (God’s people) out of slavery and oppression in Egypt, to the threshold of the promised land – the land that God had promised to the father of the nation, Abraham, almost five centuries before.

So, in terrible circumstances where babies were being slaughtered en masse, God not only saves Moses (with the help of his sister, herself a child), but He positions young Moses in Pharaoh’s household, experience that’ll become very important when he’s eighty years old, when Moses goes to Pharaoh to negotiate Israel’s release.

See, this isn’t just some story; it’s a part of God’s incredible plan to bring Israel to the promised land and then, centuries later, to bring Jesus into this world. My point? There’s a big picture here, and even someone as prominent as Moses is just a big player in God’s plan. The point is, God does have a plan, and God creates people and positions people in incredible ways.

Now if you believe in Jesus, if you’re one of God’s people, then let me tell you: You’re part of that plan. If you don’t believe in Jesus yet, and you’re not one of God’s people, you know what? You’re still part of His plan, because God has a passion to fit you into His plan. You’re not a descendant of some primeval amoebic slime; you’re a descendant, you’re a child of the living God who created you and He has a plan.

THE GIFTS GOD GAVE YOU

You know how it goes. You compare yourself to other people, and invariably in your own mind, you find yourself coming up short. Everybody else seems to be smarter; better-looking; more articulate; more successful; better-off than you. They seem to have the better marriage; more perfect children; a perfect marriage; a perfect job, and so it’s all too easy to come to the conclusion that you just don’t make the grade.

You’re something less than all those other people out there, but actually, what we tend to do is we create this composite picture of perfection by plucking the best bits out of the lives of the people around us, mixing in with that advertising industry fairy dust; and you know all those images of beauty and success that they dangle under your nose?

And then creating this set of expectations that no human being could ever live up to, but there you have the formula of low self-esteem. See, that’s what people do, and if that’s how you see yourself – as someone who just doesn’t measure up, then what sort of a life are you going to end up living, do you think?

There’s a quote going round that’s attributed to Einstein, but actually he didn’t say it. Nevertheless, it’s a good one. ‘Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will forever live its life believing that it’s stupid.’ It’s true, isn’t it? If we establish our self-worth by comparing ourselves with other people, then chances are, we’re going to come off second-best every time, and it’s that wrong image of self that’s ruining many-a life. It’s that wrong image of self that’s causing people en masse to waste their lives.

See, as far as I’m concerned, there could be nothing worse than getting to the end of my days and looking back on a wasted life. Paul – not the apostle Paul, but the owner of one of my local cafés – has come to know me reasonably well. I wandered in for breakfast at about nine o’clock one morning, obviously dressed for work, and he said, “Ah. You’re off to work, are you?” and I said, “Well, no, I’ve just finished a four-hour TV-shoot” which started, you see, just before five in the morning.

Anyway, he went off to go and get me my usual cup of coffee, smiling and shaking his head as he muttered, “You’re not going to die wondering, are you, Berni?” The answer is no! I am not going to die wondering! I’m keen to live my life absolutely to the full. I am keen to get to the end, having completely spent my life on what God has called me to do. See, I don’t want to be lying on my deathbed, looking at a life of wasted opportunities.

Now, I know what some people are thinking at this point. “Well, that’s all well and good for you, Berni. God’s given you some gifts and some abilities to go and do what you’re doing. Good for you! But I don’t have those gifts and abilities.” If that’s what’s rattling round in your head at the moment, then here’s my answer to you. Of course you don’t have my gifts and abilities! You were never meant to be me. God’s given you your own set of gifts and abilities and at this point, to keep this conversation going, there are some people (perhaps you’re one of them) thinking, ‘But I don’t have any gifts and abilities.’ Well, that simply isn’t true, because that’s not what God says. 1 Peter 4:10 says this:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

In other words, we have all received at least one gift from God! Again the apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth about spiritual gifts God has bestowed on us. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6:

Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are a variety of services, but the same Lord; and there are a variety of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

See, there it is again! To each one has been given a spiritual gift. It’s just that they’re all different. In verse 11 of the same chapter, it says of those gifts:

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

So, do you see how completely futile it is to compare yourself to other people? I mean, God had sovereignly decided what gift He was going to give each one of us, but the point is that He does give each one of us a particular gift or ability that we’re meant to use, to exercise, for the common good.

I would have loved to have been given the gift of healing, but instead, God’s given me a gift to tell stories. “What sort of a gift is that?” you might ask. Well, the one thing that I can do really well is to take complex things and simplify them – bring them together, in a way that not only people understand and relate to, but in a way that moves them to do something about what they’ve just heard. Now, that’s not a boast. That’s not a statement I make out of pride; it’s a simple statement of fact. There are lots of other things that I’m not good at.

If I compare myself to friends of mine, like a good mate of mine – Pastor Greg Holder, he’s so pastorally-gifted. If I compared myself to him, I’d come off thinking, “Well, you know, I’m uncaring and unloving.” I’m not, by the way; I care deeply about you, which is why I’m doing what God made me to do.

Listen up. God has gifted you in a special way, and His plan for you is to use that gift for the common good. Now, you don’t always find your gift listed in the Bible. I mean, storytelling is not listed as a gift in the Bible, but there we are. See, there are three places in the New Testament that talk about gifts or giftings: Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4, but when I read them, as I said, I don’t read storytelling as one of the gifts. I don’t read about conceptualising and simplifying complex issues into simple explanations as one of the gifts.

You have a gift: At least one; possibly more, and comparing yourself to other people ain’t going to do it for you. God has given you a gift or an ability, and something that you love doing: Something that you can do better than just about anyone else you know, and in that gift you will discover your calling. You will discover the part of God’s plan that God has called you to play – to do with the gifts and abilities, the natural talents and motivations, that He’s given you, and nobody can take that away from you. Romans 11:29:

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

There’s no turning around. There’s no taking them away. Perhaps that’s why people so often talk about destiny. God has a destiny for you. God has a plan for you, and He’s given you everything that you need to fulfil that destiny. He made you with your destiny in mind. Back to one of my favourite passages of Scripture, Ephesians 2:10.

You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for you to do. In other words, God’s handcrafted you to do what He’s ordained you to do, even before time’s begun. You are a one-off piece of workmanship, made perfectly fit for purpose – the purpose that God has for you.

And so here it is: My definition of a wasted life, drawn straight out of this verse (Ephesians 2:10). A wasted life is when we don’t do what God made us to do. A wasted life is when we squander the gifts and the abilities that God’s given us by spending them on ourselves, instead of spending them on others in honour of the God who gave them to us in the first place and as someone who before coming to Christ (over twenty years ago now) turned wasting his gifts and abilities on himself, I can tell you it was a hollow pursuit, and as much as we think gaining worldly success will fulfil us, it doesn’t.

In fact it left me so empty, so lost, that I almost took my own life. Do yourself a favour: Don’t waste your life.

THE DREAMS GOD WOVE INTO YOUR DNA

Dreams come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Of course, we all daydream, and you know something? That’s a really important thing to do. You see, often we think of daydreaming as something of a negative, but one of the great attributes of leaders in particular is the ability to dream: The ability to let the mind wander; to roam free; to explore possibilities; to visualise the future.

In leading this ministry of ChristianityWorks that I’m involved in, I consider it really important to dream – to take the time quietly to think about possibilities; to weigh options; to picture what some new opportunity might look like when we get there, and so often, I’ve walked into the office with that look on my face that the staff have come to recognise, and someone whispers an, “Oh no. Berni’s come up with some other crazy idea. I wonder what it is this time.”

Not all of them come off. Not every dream turns into a reality. Sometimes they’re not practical; sometimes the timing isn’t right; sometimes God closes the door, but there are many times that those dreams have become a reality.

There are many times when God’s been in them and done amazing things, taking the ministry to Africa when we didn’t have anywhere near the resources to do that, but where now, millions of people each week are listening to this programme; redeveloping our website to become really friendly, to serve up teaching resources in innovative different ways when again, we didn’t have the funds to do that, but now a few years on, it’s completely revolutionised the reach and the impact of the ministry.

I want to take you today into God’s Word, to show you a particularly odd, a particularly weird manifestation of someone’s dream. We’re going to join Moses again. He’s grown up now; just under forty years old, and something happens that really upsets his life. Exodus 2:11-15:

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and he saw their forced labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way, he looked that way, and seeing that no one was there, he killed that Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting, and he said to the one who was in the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?’

And the guy answers:

‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Did you mean to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘Surely this thing is known.’ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from the Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian and sat down by a well.

So, remember the story. Moses is born a Hebrew at the time when Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, but they were becoming so numerous that Pharaoh decides to kill all the baby boys that are born to the Hebrews: A terrible genocide, murdering babies. Can you imagine? But Moses’ mother puts him in a basket that floats down the Nile and he’s found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who decides to adopt him and bring him up as her own child.

So for the last forty years, Moses has been living a life of incredible power and privilege, but you know the saying: Blood is thicker than water, and when as a Hebrew he kills an Egyptian, his life is in danger and he has to flee to Midian, which is way out beyond the back of nowhere when you compare it to the thriving metropolis, the centre of world-power, where he’d lived such a privileged life for the last forty years.

So what does this have to do with Moses having a dream? Well, you see, it wasn’t exactly a dream; not quite yet. Moses had no idea that one day, forty years later aged eighty, he would lead Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery towards the promised land in such a spectacular fashion, but what he did have in his heart was a love for his people – an anger at the way they were being mistreated. In him was beating the heart of God for His people, and that’s what caused him to lash out and kill the Egyptian oppressor.

You see, that’s kind of how dreams begin. They begin in the heart, with motivations; with natural inclinations. That’s why the gifts listed in Romans 12:4-8 are often called motivational giftings. They spawn from gifts that God has engineered into your DNA.

I remember when I first became a Christian, aged thirty-six. I started dreaming about preaching to large groups of people: Millions of people. I couldn’t tell anyone about those dreams because they’d have thought I was self-deluded at best and prideful at worst. They were crazy dreams! They were irrational dreams, particularly given the pain and the difficult circumstances that I was travelling through at the time.

When we have those dreams, there’s one of two things we can do with them. We can get all rational; we can tell ourselves they’re ridiculous, which clearly they are, and close them down. And more and more, that’s what people do amidst the hectic, here-and-now-focused lives that we lead.

The other thing we could do is to nurture them; to turn them over; to develop them; to kind of set them free in our hearts and our minds and see where they take us. See whether God opens some doors to step through and start to realise those dreams, and it seems to me that hanging on to those dreams during the dark times and the difficult times, protecting them, nurturing them until the sun shines again, is one of the most important things that we can do to live the life that God has called us to live.

Moses must have wondered on many occasions over the ensuing forty years that he was spending tending sheep in the wilderness what that day had been all about; why he’d lashed out; whether it was worth it, but then one day, when God was ready, when Moses was eighty years old, God called him to do the thing that He’d created him to do.

I have seen the suffering of My people,” said God. “Go and tell Pharaoh to let My people go.

See, those motivations that God has placed in your heart – those dreams that you keep dreaming, protect them because one day, God will be ready, and it may be sooner than you think.

Most of us believe in some sense of destiny, some sense of calling. Of course that’s all well and good in theory, but in practice, life seems to grind on and the reality is that most people have lost any sense that they may have had, that God has a call on their lives.

GOD’S CALL ON YOUR LIFE 

It’s true isn’t it? We’d all love to think that there is some destiny for our lives, some call that that there is to fulfil. That somehow there’s a point to life; that when we’re gone, we’ll have left our mark, that our lives will have had some significance, some purpose. That’s what we’d like to think. But the cold, harsh reality for most people is that the sheer grind of daily life obscures any altruistic narrative that we might have had for our lives.

I remember as a young man, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen … I had all sorts of hopes and dreams for the future. But by the time your mid-twenties are over and done with, and you’re married with a mortgage, with children, trying to carve out a career, dealing with the pressures of work and family and finances and all that stuff, it’s head down, ploughing through it all, expending all your energy on just getting through each day.

So, you get to the weekend, you flop on the lounge exhausted, you have to do the shopping, and the cleaning, and run the children around here and there and everywhere else, mow the lawn perhaps … just so you can get back into it again on Monday.

And so, day by day, week by week, month by month, and even … year by year … life just slips inexorably by. Until all of a sudden you look up and ten years has gone by, and then another ten years and another and before you realise it, you’re looking back on a life of what exactly? Just eking out an existence? Just making it by?

That’s the reality for most people, isn’t it? Living a life that doesn’t seem to count for much. A life that doesn’t seem to make much of an impact in this world. The reality is that dragging ourselves out of our comfort zones is not at all easy, when the ordinariness of life appears to be so demanding, and yet strangely at the same time, so alluring. There’s an inertia about your life when it comes to stepping out and following God, isn’t there?

That’s certainly what Moses found. Forty years of living in Pharaoh’s house, in privilege and in comfort. Then forty years living in the wilderness, tending the sheep. So that by the time God comes to him and calls him to step up to the mark, Moses is a burnt-out old wreck, without any self-confidence whatsoever in his own abilities and giftings and the call of God.

By the time God comes to him to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh: ‘let my people go’, Moses, well, you’d have to say, is pretty well convinced that he’s over the hill. You’d think that he’d be jumping at the chance to do something of significance, but not so. Have a listen – Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 to 10:

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ 

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then God said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 

Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 

The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ And God said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship Me on this mountain.’

So, there was a pressing need. It spoke right into Moses’ heart for his people, and yet his first reaction was, in effect, to say: “God, You’re kidding me, right? And if you read on, you’ll see that he came up with at least four more excuses why it wouldn’t be a good idea for God to send him, of all people – despite the miracles of power that God showed him. To the point where God became angry with Moses. Have a listen – Exodus chapter 4, verses 13 and 14:

But Moses said, (this is excuse #5) ‘O my Lord, please send someone else.’ Then the anger of God was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘What of your brother Aaron the Levite…’ 

And see, that’s often the way with us too. Sure it’s fine to dream about the amazing things that God is going to do through us … one day. One day a long way in the future. And oh, by the way, in our dreams, there are never any challenges or obstacles. It’s always plain sailing. But when that day comes, when God finally comes along and taps you on the shoulder, when dreaming goes from the comfortable, soft sofa, to getting out there on the dusty, hard road with Jesus … what, me God? Surely you should send someone else. Someone far better qualified than me. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 26 to 29:

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what was foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 

See, that’s the truth of the matter. God calls simple people like you and me to do the things He wants done on this earth. Bog ordinary people like you and me to do and to achieve absolutely extraordinary things through the extraordinary power of an extraordinary God. Don’t miss out on that day. Don’t ignore God’s call on your life. Because if you do, one day, you’ll be looking back on a wasted life, and what a tragedy that would be.

I distinctly remember when God was in the process of calling me out of my comfortable, affluent IT consulting career into fulltime ministry. You know, it wasn’t an easy step to make. It was about going from lots of money to a ministry that was ailing and failing at the time. It was about leaving my career behind, my reputation behind, everything I’d worked so hard for, for over twenty years … behind.

And a dear friend of mine, Dave Hansen who now lives in Kansas City serving the Lord there, sent me a book called “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper. I read that book and was so deeply convinced of the horror of a wasted life, the horror of coming to the end and looking back on a life of regret, a series of “what if I had …” decisions, that I took the step.

Now look, not everyone, praise God, is called to fulltime ministry. Some people are called to sacrifice in other ways. To give generously. To serve as leaders in their church. To help the poor, the needy, the homeless, the hurting – each according to the gifts and the abilities and the resources that the Lord our God has entrusted us with.

But, let me come back to my definition of a wasted life: it’s a life where we don’t do what God has called us to do; a life where we waste our resources and our gifts and our energies on ourselves, rather than as God had planned.

It is the most unfulfilling life. It’s a waste. Remember, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for us to walk into. 

So, how are you going to spend the rest of your life?

THE IMPOSSIBLE IS POSSIBLE 

For many people, and I’ve been in this space too from time to time, there seems to be a yawning gap between what they hear preached on a Sunday morning and how their lives play themselves out Monday through Saturday.

There seems to be a huge gap between the powerful statements about faith and God’s plan and overcoming obstacles on the one hand, and actually living life on the other.

How often have you heard or read these words from Jesus – Matthew chapter 17, verse 20:

Truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 

Well that’s just fine and dandy. Thank you Jesus. But that doesn’t seem to be how my life works. There are these obstacles in the road and they don’t seem to be moving and so I’m stuck in this rut. Here I am, I want to serve the Lord, but things just aren’t happening. And then Jesus comes along with these very high statements about faith and prayer. Here’s another one – John chapter 15, verse 7:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 

You see the dilemma don’t you? The Bible, in fact Jesus, seemed to promise one thing and yet our cold, hard experience in life seems to declare the complete opposite. How often have you asked God for something and it hasn’t happened? The answer for anybody who’s been praying for any length of time is … lots of times, right?

And it’s this dilemma that discourages so many people from stepping out and living the life that God has planned for them. You see, it’s this yawning gap that has many people turning back in droves, back to their old lives, back to their comfort zones, back to living for themselves, rather than pouring out their lives for others, in Jesus’ name.

Fact: obstacles make us want to turn back. Over the course of this week, over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking a bit about the old Moses. This man whom God called from obscurity to go tell Pharaoh to “let my people go”.

I’m going to fast forward just a bit from where we were before the break. Moses goes and confronts Pharaoh, Pharaoh says no, so now God sends ten plagues on Egypt, eventually Pharaoh relents and the Israelites flee through the Red Sea which God has miraculously parted for them, and then the Egyptian army is destroyed as the sea comes back and drowns them. The greatest military machine on Earth, was completely destroyed by God.

I mean, that’s all pretty miraculous, wouldn’t you say? If you or I had been one of the Israelites following Moses out of Egypt, I mean, you would have been totally amazed! Wouldn’t it have completely changed your perspective of God having seen that? Sure it would.

But listen to what happens the moment the Israelites discover that there isn’t any food to eat or water to drink out there in the desert. So, God has done these amazing miracles and now they need food and water. Exodus chapter 16, verses 2 and 3:

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill us, this whole assembly with hunger.’ 

The moment they run into their very first obstacle, they hanker to return to the safety and the predictability of Egypt, even though back there, they were oppressed as slaves. Why is that? Because the obstacle confronting them, the lack of food and the lack of water for a million or so people out in the dessert, appeared to be completely insurmountable. And in human terms it was. A wise person once said:

When God is about to do something great, He starts with a difficulty. When God is about to do something truly magnificent, He starts with an impossibility! Armin Gesswein

Would you like to know what God did next for the Israelites? It comes in the very next verse. Exodus chapter 16, verses 4 to 8:

The Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people will go out and gather enough for just that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instructions or not. But on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gathered on other days.’ 

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, ‘In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Him. For what are we, that you complain against us?’ And Moses said, ‘When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him — what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.’ 

And then God did what He said … He rained food down from heaven. Because that’s what God can do. What seems impossible to you and me is simply an opportunity for God to display His power and His glory. Jeremiah chapter 32, verse 17:

Ah Lord God! It was you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is impossible for you! 

And all that you and I need is just a mustard seed of faith, that’s all. Just stop and think about that. To move a mountain, you don’t need faith that’s bigger than the mountain. That’s what we would normally think. The laws of nature, the laws of physics that we understand and live by, require the force that moves the mountain to be bigger and more powerful than the mountain. So we get to thinking that we have to bigger and more powerful, that our faith has to be bigger and more powerful. When all along, simply a mustard seed of faith will do.

Why? Because God created the universe and nothing is impossible for Him. To Him, that mountain, that massive obstacle on your road is less than a speck of dust. When are we finally going to wake up to the fact that obstacles are par for the course? Obstacles are the opportunity for God to do the miraculous. Obstacles are simply no excuse for a wasted life.

When I stepped out into the ministry of Christianityworks back in 2004, the ministry was dead broke, we weren’t producing any radio or TV programs – which is our reason for being and everything looked impossible. Fortunately, I was still young enough as a Christian to have childlike faith, simply to believe that God would do it.

I didn’t have a clue about anything much really. No idea about how to produce radio messages. No idea about how to approach radio stations even if we had something to put to air. No idea about how to get people to support the ministry so that it could go on. Nothing. Not a clue. But God had all He needed. He had a mustard seed of faith in my heart and that is all He needed.

These days, people look at the ministry of Christianityworks (the ministry that produces these daily programs) and they smile at how successful it is. Millions of listeners around the world each week. Wow! Amazing!

Yeah, but you have no idea how many mountains have been moved along the way. Each time testing our faith. Each time taking us to the edge. Each time having us down on our knees imploring God to intervene.

There have been so many impossible situations, so many times when this ministry should have folded since it was founded in 1957 … but each time, God showed up. Not in the way we’d planned. Not always to make it easy, but to take us to the next level, and the next level.

All the time, growing our faith. All the time testing our resolve. All the time walking with us, going ahead of us, preparing the way, even though we couldn’t see it.

Obstacles are no excuse for turning back. Obstacles are no excuse for a wasted life, because nothing is impossible for God.

BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

The impossible truly is possible. God has a call on your life. He made you who you are, you are purchased at a price, you are not your own (1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 20) and in all of that, God has this amazing plan for your life. It may sometimes not be all that clear to you and me what His plan might be, but in His mind, in His heart, it’s crystal clear. Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11:

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope.

And this reality, this story, your story intertwined with God’s story, the part that God has ready for you to play as He draws humanity towards Himself, is the scene, the backdrop, the context of your life and where you are at the moment.

It’s the big picture, the big story of your life. And it’s time for you to get a grip of the incredible trouble that God has gone to, to make you who you are, to put you where He’s put you, to give you the gifts and the abilities and the experience and the insight that He’s bred into you through your DNA and nurtured in you through your experiences on your journey so far.

Do you get it? You, yes you, are fearfully and wonderfully made by God and God does have a purpose for you. It’s all summed up beautifully in a single verse that the Apostle Paul penned, back in the first century. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10:

You are God’s workmanship (let this sink in), you are God’s workmanship, you have been created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that God prepared beforehand for you to do. 

Literally in the original Greek, that God prepared beforehand for you to walk into. The good works that God’s got ready before time began, to be your way of life. God has a plan for your life, an incredible, powerful plan to use all the good things and all the bad things that have happened to you as well, to bless other people. But the sad reality is that so many people miss out on that plan. They look in that mirror day after day at themselves every morning … and they end up wasting their lives.

God isn’t in a hurry. You know for me it was eight years from when I started sensing that God was calling me to share the good news of Jesus with millions of people, until God finally called me into this ministry of Christianityworks. And when he did, the ministry was a complete wreck. It was ready to fold – it wasn’t ministering to anyone much and as a result, it had no supporters and therefore no funds.

But over the last decade and a bit, I’ve seen God do so many amazing things. I’ve seen so many of the things that I had dreamed about all those years before come to fruition, because they were all part of God’s plan.

When I get an email from an African terrorist who has killed so many people, but has heard this program on his radio, and gives his life to Christ and lays down his gun … I think back to those dreams. They seemed so silly at the time … they were just dreams. Now we’re living that dream.

When I get an email from a woman in the UK, who’s about to swallow some pills and take her own life. She’s already written her farewell letter to her husband and her daughter, whom she loves very much. And this program comes on air and I happened to be talking about (that day) her favourite Bible verse – God pulls her back from the brink, He changes her life completely … I am so glad that God didn’t let the crazy dreams in my heart die during those dark days when all I could see were storm clouds.

Don’t stop dreaming. Don’t stop believing that God has a plan and a call on your life. Don’t lower your gaze to the here and now, to making money, buying the latest gadget, all that stuff. Because none of those things will ever satisfy you and in the end, when your end comes, what sort of a life will you have to look back on. A wasted life? What a tragedy that would be!

So I want to encourage you, listen to God’s Word today. Believe Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 – let the Holy Spirit bring that to life in your heart; to nurture the dreams in your heart, set your mind free to roam and to wander … because God wants to use your gifts, your dreams, your abilities, your experiences, all that He has given you, to make a difference in this world. Anything less my friend … would be a wasted life.

There’s a big difference often between urgent tasks and important ones, and all too often we allow the urgent tasks to crowd out the important ones. You know, it happens to all of us.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES

I have to tell you, I have more urgent things crowding in on me every day than I’d like to think about. You may have been enjoying me here on the programme for a while and you think to yourself, “You know, that guy on the radio – he has a good life. He just has to sit down for ten minutes every day and chat with me, and that’s pretty much it.” I wish! But let me tell you, there are more radio-messages to be prepared and to be written.

I do over five hundred of them every year. More booklets to be written; more TV-programmes to be shot. I do around eighty of those every year, and then there’s the ministry to run: Lots of travel; detailed minutia in running the office; managing the ministry team in four countries, and on and on it goes.

I was sitting at my desk in the office the other day, and one person asked me this, so I went to help them; and as soon as I was finished, another one asked me that, then the next one and the next one. Before I knew it, an hour-and-a-half had gone by; all apparently urgent things (and of course, they were), but it’s just so easy to end up running around doing things for other people: Answering Emails; doing this and that and the other thing, and before you know it, the day’s gone. The week’s gone. Whoop, it’s the first of the month again! And so life just slips by; days, weeks, months, years, decades slip by.

A few months ago, I watched a great German Christmas advertisement. It was about an old man who couldn’t seem to get his family to come and spend Christmas with him because they were all too busy doing all the urgent things they had to do in their jobs and with their children, so he sent out a death notice and they all came over, and there he was – the Christmas table set, and he said to them, “How else was I going to get you all together?” The closing caption to the ad was, “It’s time to come home”. Spending time with elderly parents is important.

Giving your family the best of your time – it’s really important, and living your life for Jesus day after day, every day, is really important. But as you and I both know, there are so many urgent things that crowd out our time, and so we feel guilty about not giving our family time; our children time; our elderly parents time. We feel guilty about the fact that we don’t make the time to pray; that we don’t seem to have time to open that Bible that’s gathering dust somewhere in the cupboard; that we don’t have time to … well … to do the important things.

A busy young man, a wealthy young man, once confronted Jesus about his priorities. He asked Jesus, ‘What do I have to do to get eternal life? What’s the most important thing to do?’ Let’s see how the exchange unfolds. It’s quite illuminating when we think of our own situations. Matthew 19:16-26:

Then someone came to Him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And Jesus said to Him, ‘Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said to Him, ‘Which ones?’

 And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honour your father and your mother also. You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And the young man said to Him, ‘I have kept all of these. What do I still lack?’

 Jesus said to Him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow Me.’

When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God, all things are possible.’

Now you might be wondering yourself, “How does this story apply to me?” Well, the rich young ruler was a busy guy, and he’s checking in with Jesus to make sure that he has his priorities right in the middle of all that busyness, because he knows something’s not quite right. Don’t murder, check. Don’t commit adultery, check. Don’t steal, check. Don’t bear false witness, check. He was ok in each department, but still, he knew that something wasn’t quite right.

Like you, like me, we know when things aren’t quite right. All the busyness in the world can’t wallpaper over the deep feeling inside that something’s missing, and then Jesus puts His finger right on it: The young man’s wealth. “Give it all away,” says Jesus. “Then you’ll be fine,” and with that one thing, the rich young ruler knows, “That’s my problem.” That one thing. He’s making his wealth more important than loving God; than following Jesus, and he goes away grieving, for he had many possessions.

What’s that one thing in your life that’s keeping you from doing the most important thing? And of course, Jesus left out the most important thing in all of that, that:

You should love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment, and the second one is just like it: You should love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law and all the prophets.

You and I are just so good, so good, at coming up with excuses. I’m too busy; you don’t realise how hard it is for me; there’s this and there’s that, and there’s the other thing and before you know it, life has slipped away! The time is short, people, seriously short. The days fly by so quickly, and so how we spend our time comes down to our priorities.

Have you found yourself making excuses? “Well, I don’t have time to visit my ageing mother. I’m too tired by the time I get to the weekend. I don’t have time to read my Bible; to go and visit that sick friend; to use my gifts and abilities and resources for God.” Excuses, excuses, excuses. So, you’re too busy, are you?

WEDDED TO YOUR COMFORT ZONE

It’s true, isn’t it? We like things to be safe and predictable. I mean, we’re happy to get our thrills by watching movies and television shows: You know, the suspense drama; will the hero live or will he die? Will the heroine survive? Let them take all the risks. We call that entertainment: A bit of nail-biting; edge-of-your-seat drama … Well, it’s good fun, as long as it happens on the screen and not in my life. Right?

But our lives, my life, your life, we definitely, definitely want that to be safe and predictable: Not boring necessarily; we don’t mind being stretched a little bit sometimes, but safe and predictable is good.

Let me give you a few examples, just so you get my point. Mum and dad bring a small child into the world. What your life is when Bumps has the same sleep patterns every day! That way you can get in-sync, and get a bit of a rest too, but as things happen, sleep patterns change; they get disrupted, and so you walk around bleary-eyed.

You were hoping for predictable, but what you got was unpredictable, and before Junior starts walking, you childproof your home. Right? You move all the precious ornaments up high where they can’t be reached and damaged. If you have stairs, you buy one of those kiddy gates to put at the top of the stairs so that Junior doesn’t fall down, but still, your little darling manages to get in trouble and hurt himself.

Two simple examples of how you try to make your world safe and predictable. Now there’s nothing wrong with either of those, but we are programmed to aim for safe and predictable. We like routines. We don’t like surprises. We don’t like risks.

Compare fulltime employment to casual employment. Most of us would much rather have a fulltime job because … why? Yeah, you guessed it: It’s safe and predictable. A regular income coming in each and every month; you can plan your budget; your costs; your expenses, and everything is just fine. Right? Until you get sick. Until you have two months off-work. Until your sick leave runs out, which is why so many people these days carry Income Protection Insurance.

Now, why am I carrying on about this? Simply to make the point that we arrange our whole lives to create a comfort zone around us. Almost everything we do is designed to make our lives safe and predictable.

The problem is, Jesus is anything but safe and predictable. He was wild and untamed. The religious leaders of the day tried to rein Him in, but He kept on going out there and breaking the rules: Healing people on the Sabbath; hanging around with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes; touching lepers, and by and large, upsetting the safe and predictable and lucrative lifestyles of the rich and the famous, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And it was this very clash between the unpredictable, unconventional, radical, subversive Jesus and the comfort zones of the religious establishment that ultimately got Jesus crucified. This was the very reason they plotted to have Him killed, my point being that safe and predictable on the one hand and Jesus on the other are a bit like oil and water; they don’t mix; they never have, and they never will.

Sometimes we read stories in the Bible so often that they just seem mundane; routine; we don’t think too much about them anymore, but time and time again, God calls men and women out of their comfort zones to follow Him on a risky venture. Here are just a few quick examples. Genesis 12:1-4:

Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name to be great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram went as the LORD had told him and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old and he departed from Haran.

And the point is that Abram was really wealthy and very comfortable. He was also seventy-five years old and childless, and yet God calls him out of his comfortable, out of his safe and predictable existence, where all the buses and the trains ran on-time, on a long arduous journey towards the absolutely impossible. Abram and Sarai were old and childless, yet God promises to make them the parents of a great nation. To Abram’s credit, he went just as the LORD had told him.

Then there’s King Jehoshaphat. A mighty army comes against him. The odds are overwhelming! He is absolutely petrified, but he seeks the LORD, and a prophet is raised up and speaks. 2 Chronicles 20:15-20:

The prophet said, ‘Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the LORD to you: Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but it’s God’s. Tomorrow, go down against them. They will come up the Ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley before the wilderness of Jeruel. This battle is not for you to fight. Take your positions; stand still, and see the victory of the LORD on your behalf, o Judah and Jerusalem. Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out against them and the LORD will be with you.’

Then Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face on the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the LORD, worshipping the LORD.

Do you notice what God told the king to do? To leave the city. To leave the power and safety behind the defences that you’ve built, and go out in the open and stand there against this great and mighty army. Get out of your comfort zone, and just stand there, and wait for God to fight on your behalf. Sensational! See? It’s so easy to read that story and think to yourself, “Well, that’s great. God did it all; they didn’t have to do anything.” Well, God did do it all in the end if you read on, but Jehoshaphat and his army still had to leave their comfort zone and put themselves in absolute mortal danger out in the open.

And again. Mark 1:16-20:

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately, they left their nets and followed Jesus. As He went a little farther, He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Jesus.

I mean, these young fellows were fishermen. Fishing was their business, their living. They got up early every morning, went out and hauled in the catch and sold them at the markets and made a good, solid living out of fishing. Safe and predictable. Now this Jesus comes along, sweeps them all up, and calls them to leave their safe, comfortable, predictable lives to follow Him. Where? Well, who knows?

Do you see a pattern emerging here? They’re just three examples, but you see it over and over and over again throughout the Bible: God calling people out of their comfort zones, into the risky business of following Jesus. God’s mightiest works don’t happen in our comfort zones.

When God called me out of my nice, safe, predictable and, let me say, rather lucrative IT consulting career into this ministry of ChristianityWorks, the ministry was pretty much dead: No radio-programmes; no donors; no income; the last one out, turn out the lights.

Pretty much terminal, you’d have to say, but that was the call, and the reason I followed is that I didn’t want to die wondering: What if I’d followed God’s call that day? How would it have turned out? I didn’t want to get to the end of my life and look back on a string of missed opportunities. I didn’t want to look back on a wasted life.

Let me tell you something. Safe and predictable has de-railed many-a plan that God has had for His people, and it will continue to do so. So when Jesus calls you to what He’s calling you to, will you go?

TOO TIMID TO STEP OUT

They say that about 12.3% of the population are natural entrepreneurs. Now I’m sure if you used different scales and measures that you’d go up or down by a few percentage points here or there. Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say that less than 20% of us, fewer than 1 in 5, are natural risk-takers: People who are prepared to scout out an opportunity and then put it all on the line; to have a go, and turn that opportunity into a successful venture. That’s ok.

If we were all entrepreneurs, then it’d be a pretty unstable world in which we live. We need people to front up and host regular jobs and deliver a regular paycheque. Otherwise, our economy and our society simply wouldn’t function, but have you ever seen an opportunity, a possibility, a glimmer of something that just might turn into something, and just been too timid to step out? It doesn’t have to be a business venture. It might be that your church is crying out for someone to help with the kids’ ministry or the sound desk or the stall out in the street and you think to yourself, “Yeah! I could do that. I think I’d enjoy that actually”, but then for some reason, you just couldn’t bring yourself to put up your hand; to step out; to have a go.

Well, if you’ve ever been in that situation, you’re not alone. You’re not the only one. We’ve all been there, and if the truth be known, it’s taking that first step that stops all too many people from realising what God has planned for them.

I remember as a young Christian, going to a church in a green leafy suburb of Sydney called Oyster Bay. There was a brochure on the back of the table for a local Bible-college, and the moment I picked it up, God stirred something in my heart. I felt Him nudging me in that direction, so I took the brochure home.

I got all excited; I read it cover to cover several times, and then there it sat on the coffee table for weeks. It’s not that I’m an indecisive person; I’m not, but it just seemed ludicrous – crazy that Berni, the former army officer, now IT consultant, should go and study at a Bible-college. See, it’s at this point that things all too often come to a screaming halt because we’re afraid of taking that first step.

God’s people are in mortal danger and Esther, the Hebrew, has now become the queen. But one of the king’s advisors, Haman, tricks the king into ordering that all Hebrews in his kingdom should be killed. Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, who lives out there as a commoner, decides that he has to do something about it, so he goes to see his niece, Queen Esther, and implores her to go and see the king to petition him on behalf of the Hebrew people. That’s a good plan, but there’s a huge risk. Let’s see how it pans out. Esther 4:11-16:

‘All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes in to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law: All alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the sceptre to someone may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.’ 

When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther thus: ‘Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape, any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise up for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this.’

 Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, ‘Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days night and day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, though it is against the law and if I perish, I perish.’

What an extreme situation! All the Hebrew people’s lives were at stake here; all her relatives; the whole Hebrew nation! She’s in a position to go and see the king (her husband) to talk about it, but she faces a huge risk. He had done away with his first wife. Would Esther now follow the same fate? She’s teetering on the edge, and then Mordecai makes that powerful point, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this! Maybe God put you there in that position to deal with this very problem.”

And that’s the thing: So often opportunities come disguised as problems, don’t they? It was a problem to me that I’d been a Christian for all of five minutes and I felt God calling me to go to Bible-college. When I applied and I had to go for an interview, I remember feeling like such an incredible fraud. I mean, I knew nothing; nothing about the Bible; nothing! And yet it was at Bible-college that I came into contact with the ministry of ChristianityWorks. It was at Bible-college that the next part of God’s plan for my life was already waiting. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t be with you here right now having this chat.

See, too many of God’s mighty plans go awry because of that crucial point of taking the first step. We’re too timid to step out. God put Esther in that place to risk her life for her people, in order to preserve the Hebrew nation so that one day, all the nations would be blessed as God’s Son was born in Bethlehem. Get a revelation of that! God has plans.

He has mighty plans, and He calls His people to be ready and waiting, like soldiers waiting for the call to the battle. When a military unit receives deployment orders from its government, the men and women step up, put on their uniform, take their pack and their provisions and their weapons, and they head out into deployments that risk their lives. It’s what they’ve been trained to do; it’s what they’ve been called to do, and so they go. God has made you with a purpose. Ephesians 2:10:

For you are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for you to walk into.

I’ll say it again: God made you with a purpose, with a specific plan in mind. It’s a good plan; God is faithful, and when that call comes, as it always does, don’t be afraid to take that first step, for maybe it was for a time such as this that He created you.

Life is full of decisions. Big decisions and small decisions. We make all sorts of decisions dozens of times each and every day. From the insignificant to the life-changing. But there is one decision that each one of us has to make at some point in our lives. Will I live my life for Jesus, or will I live my life for me?

 

THE BIG DECISION

Life is an incredibly precious thing. Your life, is an incredibly precious thing. Think about it. You were born out of your mother’s womb, your parents loved you, they raised you, you became a teenager and then an adult … with a mind, with passions for certain things, with gifts and abilities, and yeah, some wrinkles and bumps as well.

And while you were still back there in your mother’s womb, God made you who you are today. Psalm 139, verses 13 to 18:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; God, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.

Absolutely incredibly. Handcrafted by the living God, to be who you are today, and to do the things that He planned for you to do. That’s right. Because in His book were written all the days of your life before any of them as yet existed. He had a plan ready to go before you were born and He made you to be a perfect fit to His plan for your life.

Unbelievable. See, that rocks me to the core every time I read it. But at the some point, you and I have become responsible for our own lives. At some point we have the wisdom and the maturity to make our own choices.

I remember back when I finished high-school, it was a time when I believed in Jesus. I had decided I wanted to become a minister. Well, you know what happens at that point – all the altruism evaporates, and you go and get yourself a career and you find yourself on the treadmill of wealth and materialism. It’s just what happens to most of us at that age. And it’s what happened to me.

Over the next twenty or so years, I lived my life for me. It was all about me … what I could get for me. As you may have heard me say in the past, it didn’t satisfy me. But there you have it. That’s what I chose, until I came crashing down. And God brought me to a decision point again. Who was I going to live my life for? Me or Him?

That’s the question that each one of us needs to answer. So let me ask it of you here and now. Who are you actually living your life for? For yourself or for God? Come on, be honest with yourself. Look at the priorities in your life. What do you give the greatest weight to? What do you expend the greatest energy for? How are you living your life and for whom are you living your life?

When we take a good, hard look in the mirror at ourselves in that way, sometimes it’s a bit of a shock to see who’s looking back at us. We think we may have been living our lives for Jesus, but when we forensically examine the facts, when we consider what we’re spending our energies on, what we’re sacrificing for, where our money is going, well, those facts often tell a different story.

So today, I just want to bring you back to this question of who or what you are living your life for. Today I just want to pause, for us to take a breath, and to answer that question honestly for ourselves. Because who knows, this may be your last day, this may be my last day on this earth. I don’t mean to be alarmist, but that’s a distinct possibility. When the clock strikes midnight, it could be that your heart or mine, is no longer beating.

Just quietly, have a listen to this little parable that Jesus told – Luke chapter 12, verses 16 to 21:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and I will build larger ones, and there I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘You fool! For this very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is for those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.

Come on, isn’t that all too often how we are living our lives? Focussed on the here and now. Working away as though owning our own home and having a healthy retirement fund are the most important things on this earth? Isn’t it?!

It’s so easy to say: I am living my life for Jesus, when all along, the truth is that we’re living our lives for ourselves. Rather selfishly too, I might add. If you were arrested and put on trial for being a Christian, you have to ask yourself, whether the prosecution would be able to find enough evidence to convict you. Well, would they?

I know this is difficult. I know that these questions may be making you squirm, I get that. But isn’t it better for us to be asking them now, while we are sitting here with enough time to do something about it?

How much energy have you put into God’s work in the last 24 hours? I don’t mean labouring away at a full time ministry job, not necessarily. I’m talking about living your life, the simple, ordinary things that you do every day, for Jesus. Loving others. Being kind to strangers. Having a melody in your heart for Jesus.

When Jesus was asked: ‘What was this most important thing in life?’ This is how He answered – Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 to 40:

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

It seems to me to be all too easy to live our lives for ourselves and ignore God and other people. So whether some time in the past you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour … and perhaps you’ve just drifted back to a materialistic priorities set like everyone else, or whether you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and your Saviour … I want to give you the opportunity right now to pray a prayer with me, to give your life, lock, stock and barrel, over to God. Are you ready?

Father God, I know that I’m not in the right place. As I’ve been listening today, I’ve just come to this deep realisation in my heart that other things have crowded you out of my life. That I have a wrong set of priorities. Please forgive me in Jesus’ name. I am so sorry.

Today, and from this day on, I want Jesus to be my Saviour. I know that I have done so many things wrong, so many things against you and the only way to come back to you is through Jesus; through what Jesus did on the Cross for me.

And I know I want to live the rest of my life for you, in your power, for your glory. And to do that, I want Jesus, not just to be my Saviour, but to be the Lord of my life. I want you to be the number one priority in my life so that I can love others as you have loved me. I give my life to you – all that I am, all that I have, every hope, every dream, I give to you. Please take me just as I am, in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Wow, if you have just prayed that prayer with me, God has heard you, God has forgiven you, God has accepted you through Jesus … and He has given you a new start, a fresh start in life. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, your slate is wiped clean.

You are a completely new creation, and your life will never be the same again. If you didn’t pray that prayer with me, and you know that you don’t have your priorities right, hey, don’t leave it until tomorrow. Go to Him today, get in a right place with Him, and may you enjoy your relationship with God through Jesus Christ, from here … to eternity.

 

IT’S TIME TO FOLLOW JESUS

I remember the day that I gave my life to Jesus as though it was yesterday. It sits in my memory as clear as a bell. It was around 11:20am on Sunday the 15^th of October 1995. My life in the months and the weeks leading up to that day was just awful. I mean, to this day, that time ranks as absolutely the worst time of my life.

A few months earlier, I’d come close to taking my own life. I was depressed. My world was falling apart. My future was uncertain. It was just horrible. I was absolutely at rock bottom. And what made that all the more difficult for me was that I was someone who had always succeeded at everything that I’d ever turned my hand to. If you had asked people about me back then, they’d have told you that I was a tough, brutal so-and-so, but that my drive and my determination meant that I was also very successful at what I did.

Success, as it turned out for me was a lonely, empty place. It was that loneliness, that emptiness that drove me to the edge. So, life was awful. But these friends of mine opened their hearts and their home to me. They loved me when I was difficult to love, they stood by me. And on that day, on that Sunday, they invited me to go to church with them.

I remember the day, it was bright and sunny, but cool. I had sweaty palms walking up the hill to that church building. The pastor, a bloke by the name of Ted Keating, preached a message that day with the title ‘God is Calling You’. Sounds a bit corny now, but it had a powerful impact on me. His main text was Genesis Chapter 12, the call of Abraham.

And after the service I walked outside while all you Christians were having your cups of tea and coffee and chatting with your little groups of people that you have in your church, and I sat down under a big gumtree and I gave my life to Jesus.

Later on that day, these friends of mine were driving me to the airport as I recall, and despite all the dreadful things that were going on in my life, I was filled with the most incredible joy. I was like a balloon filled with helium bouncing around in the back of their car.

Now, maybe you’ve had a similar experience, maybe you’ve never given your life to Jesus … or maybe you’ve believed in Him for as long as you can remember. We all have different journeys, different paths … but at some point, giving your life to Christ is the single, most powerful thing that you can do.

But the problem is … there always seems to be a ‘but’ doesn’t there … that many of the people who ultimately take that step of accepting Jesus as their Saviour, don’t take the next step.

You see, that step that I just told you about, how it happened in my life was only the first step. It’s a step over the threshold into a new life, a rich life, an abundant life. The Bible says in Romans chapter 10, verse 9:

That if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That’s about putting your trust in Jesus. But do you notice what it says that you and I are called to confess with our lips? That Jesus Christ is Lord. Lord of all, including the Lord of our lives. Your life and my life. And if Jesus has truly become the Lord of your life, then His will becomes the overriding factor, the overriding measure, the overriding decision factor in your life.

The problem is people want to accept Jesus as their Saviour, but not as their Lord. Jesus knew that. Which is why He also said … and I’m reading from Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 to 23:

(He said) Not everyone who calls me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. For on that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

You see that’s about self-deception. You and I, we’re masters of self-deception. We kid ourselves that we’ve made Jesus the Lord of our lives, and then we go off and live however we want. We toddle off and we live our lives with gay abandon, spending money on ourselves hand over fist, cocooning ourselves in luxury, ignoring what the Word of God says about this and that, and helping the poor and loving our enemies and all that stuff. Yep, I believe in Jesus, check, tick in the box … I’m into heaven, I have the gift of eternal life.

Well, ah, no. Not according to Jesus. Because unless our lives reflect through our thoughts and our words and our deeds that Jesus truly is the Lord of our lives, then we’re absolutely kidding ourselves. We’re in for a rude shock on that day when we stand before God in judgement.

Let me ask you a question. Imagine a man is married to a woman, they are husband and wife. But then that man goes out and dates other women, sleeps with other women. He doesn’t care for his wife, he’s not loyal and faithful to his wife. What do his actions say about the genuineness and the reality of their marriage? Well, clearly, they’re married legally on paper, but if you put the reality, the genuineness of that marriage to the test in a court of law, a court that is intent on examining the facts, the evidence … that court would have to find that that marriage is not real.

It’s exactly the same with our relationship with Jesus. It has to be real. Jesus is the King of kings, Jesus is the Lord of lords. And once you have taken that first step of believing in Him, and accepting Him as your Saviour, the second step is living out the rest of your life with Him as your Lord. The second step is laying down your life for Him, rather than continuing to live the way you’ve always lived. Luke chapter 9, verses 23 to 26:

Then he said to them all, ‘If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but they lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.’

Can I ask you, how are you living your life? Are you busy saving your own life, looking after numero uno, feathering your own nest? Is that how you’re living? Because if it is, then the evidence suggests that your relationship with Jesus is not genuine. And to the extent that you are ashamed to stand for Jesus in this sinful, hurting world, to the same extent, Jesus will be ashamed of you on that judgement day that we will all face one day.

Or … are you sacrificing each and every day the things that were once dear to you, in order to follow wherever Jesus leads you? If that’s the case, then though you may stumble and falter along the way, Jesus won’t be ashamed of you on that judgement day.

People don’t like it when I talk about these things. I’ve had people say to me … Berni, I am saved by grace through faith. It doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll still go to heaven. Well, the first part of that is true. We are saved by grace through faith. Absolutely that’s true. Nothing you or I can do, can work us into God’s favour. Only faith in Jesus can wipe our slate clean. Nothing else.

But the second part, when you listen to what Jesus has to say, well it’s not true. Because you will know a tree by its fruit. A good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit. The fruit is the evidence of what’s going on inside that tree. And the only way I know of turning bad into good, is having a relationship with Jesus. A personal, intimate relationship with Jesus. Because when we have that, the Holy Spirit comes and fills us from the inside out and takes the bad things and turns them into good.

Good fruit is something that the Holy Spirit produces in us and through us. So let me ask you, have you taken the second step, are you living your life with Jesus as your Lord? Or are you going to be one of those many who gets a rude surprise on judgement day?

A FINAL WORD

It is so easy to get distracted from our main calling. It’s so easy to miss the point that Jesus is Lord, and that He has some important things for us to do. Because there are so many other things that draw us off course.

Let me tell you, it happens to all of us at some point. If I spent all my time racing around after other people here at work and the ministry of Christianityworks, I’d never find the time to prepare these messages. And when you think about it, in our ministry, this one thing is pretty much the most important thing. Without me doing that, there is no ministry. There is no impact on the lives of people. It just ain’t going to happen.

So, with the million and one things that I have going on at work and at home, I’ve decided that after spending time with the Lord each morning, this one thing is the most important thing in the ministry.

There are days and weeks where, frankly, I lose sight of that because of all the other things going on. But pretty much each week, as I plan my week, I diarise the chunks of time that I need to prepare these messages. I block out that time, and it has to be something really big, to get me to move it.

It’s normally really early in the morning. I mean, I was up at 3:15 in the morning as I prepared today’s message. A time when the phone doesn’t ring, a time when people don’t interrupt me. First I spent some time praying and reading God’s Word, then it was straight into this one thing.

Bottom line, for me, and … I suspect for you, that unless we decide on our priorities, unless we deliberately set aside the time to make them happen, then the important things, I mean … the truly important things in our lives simply are never going to happen. Ever. Because there will always be some other thing, something that pretends to be far more urgent, to crowd out the really important things in our lives.

So, what are the important things in your life? What are you missing out on? Because, our main priority, if we love Jesus, if we believe in Him, is this – Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 to 40:

(Jesus said) ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second one is just like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ For on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

You know, perhaps God is calling you to something big. Maybe He’s calling you to something small. It doesn’t matter which it is. We all have our part to play in God’s plans and purposes.

I remember when I started back in Bible College. It seemed such a small thing for me to be called to this humble, under-funded Bible College that had its premises in an old truck warehouse. It had a crummy little library, not a big impressive library like the denominational college down the road.

Lecture after lecture, often late at night following a hard day’s work … and I have to tell you … I am not a night person. Assignment after assignment. Tutorials. Exams. Finish one unit, get on to the next. It was so plain, it was so ordinary. But then, one day, the former head of Christianityworks came to teach a half unit in media, one thing led to another, and here I am with you and millions of other people who will listen to this program, this message today in over 160 countries.

Go figure. How did that happen? God only knows. And I think back to that first step of applying to attend that little Bible College … that brochure that I had for weeks lying on my coffee table in my lounge room. And I think of the complete tragedy it would have been if I’d just left it there, lying there, because I was too busy, because I had other things to do, and not following the call of God on my heart.

And I know, that as you look at your situation, and your circumstances, some things look plain and ordinary. It’s so easy to imagine that God doesn’t have a plan, but listen to me, He does. And He’s calling you to a life of significance, a life that’s going to impact other people for His glory. A life that, who knows, a life that perhaps He’s created just for a time such as this.

Don’t be afraid to step out. Don’t be afraid to follow Jesus. Don’t Waste Your Life.