The Goal of Christianity

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” – Matthew 10:39 NIV

The phrase that our Lord used here is what got me thinking;

“Whoever finds their life…”

I thought, ‘Why? Finding one’s life is the general theme of most of our popular Christian books and messages today.’ Whether it is, ‘Your Best Life Now!’ or ‘How to Maximise Yourself’, the central message we are preaching and being taught is that one of the main goals for life in Christ, is for one to find oneself (who God created one to be) and to maximise one’s God-given potential. On the face of it this does not look like a bad message at all and indeed there are many Bible verses that support the idea that God desires the best for us and wants us to be the best we can be. But the problem is not whether there is any truth in this message, but rather, in the central position we have come to give to it. For in placing the cart before the horse we have introduced an error.

The goal of Christianity is not for you to pursue finding yourself or your purpose or even finding meaning. Those are all by-products of the life of a Christian. The goal of the Gospel is for you to find Christ. Not just at salvation, but to make the pursuit of finding Christ your goal for the rest of your life.

Let’s look closely at the paradox of this tough declaration of our Lord. First he says, “Whoever finds their life will lose it”. If our chief aim is the pursuit of finding our life, we will lose its essence. We will never find it. We will never be fulfilled and we will never fulfil God’s purpose for us. Rather he says, “…. whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” God is not against our finding purpose and meaning and becoming fulfilled. No, he is right here showing us that there is only one way to get there – by losing your life. By giving up the pursuit of your own fulfilment for Christ’s sake, and rather making Christ your only pursuit, so that your life pursuit becomes like that of Paul:

“But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things… I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:7-8,10-11 (NIV)

So, this is the Gospel: Turn away from pursuing anything else and let Christ be your pursuit number One. Let the cry of your heart be, ‘I want to know Christ and become like him’. Then every other thing about your life will fall into place.

God’s field is the whole world

“The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one ….”   (Matthew 13:38 NIV)

Most of my life I have understood the field in the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24 -30 to be referring to the Church and how the enemy comes to plant weeds (false brethren with false doctrine) in the midst of God’s people. This has been the classic focus of interpretation for as long as I have preached or heard others preach from this parable. Indeed this can be a lesson inferred from this story. Yet as I read it again recently, I saw that one obvious key to the interpretation is the explanation of the parable that the Lord himself goes on to give his disciples in Matt. 13: 37- 43. And in his explanation he says this ‘The field is the world …’

The field is the whole world, not just the church. You may wonder why this is important. You see, we often get caught up in the mentality that the only group that our God is involved with, is the Church. And that he has left the world with its madness and only focuses on the Church and those she can win. This is not true. God owns the whole world and is fully involved in it. God loves the whole world and sees it as his field. God is very actively involved in every area of the world right now, because it is his field.. As this parable says, he’s sowing his good seed in the whole world and expecting a harvest from the whole world.

There is a way that when we, as the Church, do not understand that the whole world is God’s field, we begin to withdraw from many segments of the world, and are not available to work with God. God wants his Church to be engaged in every aspect of society, because the world is his field. Yes, the enemy has sown weeds everywhere we look in our society, but God is not going to allow this world just to go to hell. He is going to get a mighty harvest. In the parable we see how careful God is that no one should perish when he says:

“ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.’ ” – Matthew 13:29 -30 NIV

With all the madness going on in our world God is ‘not willing that any one should perish.

What this parable is teaching us, is, that we need to be engaged in the world everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, because God’s field is the whole world.

We need to have Christians everywhere.  ‘Let them grow together….’ he said. Alas, it’s only by being in the world, and not being of it, that we can determine the size of the final harvest.

When the Lord said “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” – (Mark 16:15), he was saying “Penetrate all spheres of society and preach the Gospel.”

It means to go into the world of children, and that of retirees; into the world of entertainment and that of politics; into the world of business and that of the unreached in the ends of the earth. The whole world is his field. We must not just think of creating an alternative church-world, but rather think of how to penetrate the whole world. For example instead of Christians thinking of having the Christian political party, there should be on-fire-for-Jesus believers entering the so-called corrupt political parties and being God’s worker there to bring about a harvest from there too. Instead of just building Christian schools we need more Christians called as teacher-missionaries into our public schools.

This is our call – Let us GO INTO ALL THE WORLD. If you have not yet found where you should be penetrating, I challenge you today, to ask God where he wants you to be! I am certain that for most of us we are already in the place, we only need to awake to the reality of our calling and begin to see, for example, that secular school where we work, as our primary calling, and not the worship group we are part of at church. The latter is only where we go to refuel for the real task. Let us GO!

Whatever Happens Tell Him

“Whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” Philippians 1:27 (NIV)

What a big challenge this scripture is to me – “whatever happens“. There are times when I feel justified to “be myself” and really express myself not minding if God is pleased or not. For example a while ago, someone who had destroyed my property went on to say that my claim was a lie, instead of apologising. That really made me mad and I spoke to him angrily. I was soon proved right and he then apologised; but I had lost my peace. I had not conducted myself in a manner that was worthy of the gospel I believe in nor the Lord that I follow.

There are times when we feel justified to walk in the flesh – in moments of anger, discouragement, failure, disappointment, pain, tiredness, stress, etc. But God wants us to grow into the image of his Son, who was able to endure the cross without sinning,

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly“1 Peter 2:22 & 23 (NIV)

There is a key here to how Jesus was able to please the Father in even such an extreme situation. He made it his habit to pour out his heart to God. There is a short verse in the same book of Peter that I have found very important in my daily walk with Jesus. It says

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

When I go immediately to God and tell him all that I am going through and all that is going through me, I always find that I receive grace to face whatever may be before me in a manner worthy of Christ.

Beloved I may not know what you may be facing now but I know that he cares and desires that you respond in the right way in that situation. He is waiting to help you if only you will pour out your heart to him. I pray that God will teach all of us how to cast our cares on him every moment and leave it there. He really does care and he is at work in us to make us true disciples focused on pleasing him no matter what we may be going through.

My Soul Longs for You

“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” – Psalm 63:2 NIV

I love this Psalm. I find the thirst of David’s soul for God, powerfully attractive.

“You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,

my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land

where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

His soul has one pure desire – God. ‘All I want is you Lord. It’s you Lord’ was the cry of his heart. How different it is from my own heart so many times. So many things creep in and make my longing dull and my cry so feeble. And then I begin to measure what matters by what I can see and touch. And the tempter tells me that it’s ok to pursue other things, for these are the real issues before me. The good becomes the enemy of the best. O Lord help me!

The soul athirst for God is not longing for something that is unreal. It is real because that one has tasted some of it before, and he knows there is much more. Hear David

‘I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory’ (v2). David wants more, because of what he has already tasted.

I, too, like David, have tasted God in the past. I have experienced him – I have seen him. I can’t always articulate it well in words, but I know my past experience with him. I remember seasons of deep intimacy. I recall times when he came very close. I recall my intercourse with the Almighty when he spoke and I heard, and when he acted, I saw it. I remember the joy within my soul. I have beheld his power and his glory. The God who is there. I have seen him. I have tasted him and I know he is good.

This is why I am refusing to continue to fall for the lie of the enemy of my soul. This God is real and he is all I need. No matter what life brings, with its ups and downs, I won’t be deceived about my real need. I need more of Him. I want more.

It’s true that I don’t have all the answers to all the questions that plague my mind, but I know that my God is real and that he satisfies my soul with his living waters. It’s true that troubles may last and prosperity may flee, but my need is deeper.

So my soul thirsts for him. My soul longs to be with him – to continually drink of him. This is life. This is what I need. I do not seek in vain, for it is real. He satisfies my soul.