He is Our Master

2005-12-11

In the reflection entitled “A Darkened Mind,” I revealed that in order to make myself acceptable to the world, I had to produce an accomplishment or talent to show myself worthy. After the swimming and athletics that had played that role in my life disappeared, academics took over. In the world, even in the world of ministry, knowledge and study and academic degrees are held at a high importance. Far more important, however, is the condition of the heart. This reality is often very much undermined.

Because I wanted to prove myself to the world, and also defend the Faith, I decided to move up the ladder of degrees to give myself credibility, and wanted to go into the field of apologetics. But God had something else in mind.

One of our Bible study leaders in college had a theme he presented once at a retreat. He demonstrated from the Bible how the saints were involved in a mission bigger than themselves. This surely is a large part of becoming a disciple of Jesus, for He came to earth, obedient to His Father’s will, in great love for the people of the world that were hopelessly lost.

This is where we stand: once we come to trust Christ, then what? To be His disciples, we must be willing to give up everything for Him. This is what that might look like for me: First, give up the ‘show’ mentality of trying to turn heads for attention. I have observed that most things I do and say are to elicit a response for the sake of attention and to find comfort and satisfaction in something other than Christ. I wonder what it would look like for me to channel everything I normally do and say to elicit such a response for God, and to give Him the attention and glory. And subtle would be my motive that somehow the attention would shift back to myself! Master Jesus, grant me the grace and power to shift all of my focus to you!

Second, is giving up material possessions. It is God who gave me everything I own. It was once said that everything we have is either a tool of the kingdom or an idol. Also it is good to mention that few believers in the New Testament were ever rich (Luke 18:24-25; James 5:1-6). Many were very poor, and gave up literally everything for Christ. Living a simple life is the calling for us who desire to be disciples of Christ.

Once again, our eyes are turned back to Him. He is our Master, our source of comfort and wealth, our reason for living and source of love. His mission, priorities, and goals must be our mission, priorities and goals. We were bought with a price, our Savior’s blood (see 1 Corinthians 6:20). We can’t live like that never happened.