CONCLUSION:

You may recall that I've been posting parts of my talk at Mt.Vernon Christian Center the last few weeks. This was the conclusion to my talk:

The American culture seems to be all about self!

• self-fulfillment
• self-sufficiency
• self-dependence
• self-will
• self-indulgence
• self-preservation

BUT... God has called us to self-denial! He has called us to surrender!

Mark 10:45 tells us why Jesus came. He came to… give away his life.

Oswald Chambers said:

Our Lord’s teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.

I John 3:16, 17 – (Message) This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

I find much encouragement in this verse:

Hebrews 6:10 – (Message) God doesn’t miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you’ve shown Him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it.

Each of you has a ministry. Your ministry won't look like mine. God may not send you to a foreign land.

Dinah Shitanda, a Kenyan friend of mine, said - "Deb, what a wonderful ministry you have! It’s high time we honored such. We’re all different – some of us are an arm, some of us are a leg, and some of us are hands. We shouldn’t try to duplicate one another."

If perhaps you don't have confidence you're spending your time being who God wants you to be, or doing what God wants you to do, may I encourage you to spend some time in self-discovery.

Turn off your TV! Read books like Don’t Waste Your Life. Get into the Word. Spend extended time in prayer. Do some fasting.

Be open to His leading!

Paul said in Acts 20:24, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.”

Acts 13:36 (Message) says, “David completed the work God set out for him.”

At the end of my life, I want to hear, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant!'

John Piper, in Don’t Waste Your Life, says, “If we do not learn with Paul the Christ-exalting paradoxes of life, we will squander our days pursuing bubbles that burst.”

I personally do not want to squander my days!

I do not want to pursue bubbles that burst!

Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.

Jim Elliot, the missionary to Ecuador who was martyred said, “Better to give up what you cannot keep, to gain what you cannot lose.”