Hi, I am author and speaker Brenda Crouch. Welcome to God Today. I want to take just a minute to encourage you in an area where it seems everyone is just consumed with the thought of “getting there”. Getting to their next goal, getting to that achievement that will prove them to be significant and valuable.
We are really in such a self and “me-driven” culture that sometimes I think we lose the understanding of the heart of Christ within the Church and within our own identity because we are so goal-driven. We are in a time in our world where it seems everything is shaking and the scripture says that whatever can be shaken will be shaken. I might propose to you that perhaps sometimes our goals are just things that we’ve come up with on our own because we want to feel empowered. We want to prove who we are and perhaps God is saying, “Would you just step back for a minute? Would you listen? Would you open your heart? And would you draw near to me so I can pour my love and my hope through you to the world around you?”
May I offer to you that God’s idea of getting there might be where our individual self-interest rests? Where it sleeps, and the real interest of His Kingdom at work within us awakens. We need an awakening, don’t we? I think we really do. We know the Scripture says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all of these things will be added to you.” If we are listening, if we are really listening and our hearts are for what the Father’s heart desires, we will get there. And we will learn how to rest in our own agendas, and to be empowered to be His hands and His feet for the whole world.
The Bible says in the book of John, let me read this to you, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And then He goes on to say, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” That’s my desire. I want to show my love for Jesus by loving people. And often that means I lay down my desires so that I can build someone else up. So that I can undergird and lift them up and encourage them and pour hope into a person’s life that might seem bleak. You have that in you too. I want to encourage you to do that today. And to understand that it’s all about His Kingdom. Thank you for joining me here at God Today. I am Brenda Crouch.