Sunday, November 11, 2007

Successful or Significant: Part 5 (Times of Change)


Life is full of change. In times of change, it is important to have a good strategic plan. When we seek to have a strategic plan for our lives, we are seeking to answer questions like: What should I do? How can I be most useful? Where should I invest my time, talents, and money? What are the values that give my life purpose? And, where am I going, and how do I get there?
Every plan has a mainspring.
To discover the “mainspring” in our plan we have to ask ourselves another question; the question is this: “What is most important to me?” That is a fundamental question. We come up with answers like family, work, Jesus, health. But the problem is, that for most people, while Jesus is stated in this list, Jesus isn’t really most important. Only when Jesus is most important can we really fit all the other important aspects of life into the equation! That is why Jesus said, in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
With this in mind, it is important to understand that your plan will probably not change your life drastically. You probably won't be asked by God to leave your family and live in a monastery. You probably won’t even be asked to leave where you live and become a missionary. But it will require of you to begin to give over your life to God, and be more faithful with what you have been given.
As you look at your life, is Jesus the most important? If not, then you will struggle to deal with the change that comes to your life. If not, then you will find it difficult to be significant, because you will be lost in trying to be a success. If not, then you will find yourself pulled toward serving things other than God. I challenge you to give yourself over to Christ today, and let Christ be most important.