It’s Not About You

2006-08-19

Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life was a book that had been famous in the past. Many people will swear by it, and many people find problems with it. Regardless of how we may feel about the volume, the first words of the book are remembered by most people and are very Biblical in nature.

It’s not about you.

What is life all about, then? Why are we here? If we did not bring ourselves into existence, then how did we get here, and is there a point to being alive? God fashioned us for His purpose and His pleasure. So if we were fashioned according to His design and are supposed to be used by Him, what are we doing here? Is there anyone anywhere who lives for God all the time? Do we plan every moment we are awake to please Him in every thought, word and action? If not, why do we do what we do? Yes, we are sinners saved by His grace. We trust in Christ and are saved. But then what? Once the newness of the Faith has fell away (or has it?), what do we resort to doing? What thoughts come into our minds? What dreams do we dream? Where is that adventure we long for, that we once felt in trusting Christ?

But the answer to some of these things lie in the reality that life is not about us, it is about God. It is not what the Faith can do for us, but what trusting Christ will do as a result in our lives that we may truly please God. Then when this happens, we reap that adventure in Christ we first saw in our earliest days as a Christian.

It has been said by many that there are still over 2,000 languages without the Gospel. A missionary friend of mine has a mousepad for his computer with a picture of a young boy, with a caption stating that there are 4,000 tribes who have yet to hear the Gospel.

Again, in a class recently a gentleman shared about his “sad list.” This list was a list of language groups that still need a Bible in their language. He held up this scroll of paper printed from one of those old dot matrix printers, and he rolled it down the aisle of the class, and went down the auditorium back many rows toward the back. The worst statistics he gave were as follows: for every one of those language groups, there were 600 evangelical churches in America.

But we do not need to necessarily look to the ends of the earth to see the tragedy of those who are without Christ. They are everywhere. They are coworkers, friends, family members, and total strangers. They are successful businessmen, and they are homeless. Whatever their lot in life seems to be now, it does not matter in eternity if they have not trusted Christ. Knowledge of Christ and trusting in Him hits us twofold where we live: the relief that we have eternal life in Him, but the urgency that others are lost and need to be found: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

If we are looking for adventure, as I long to have, we need to be where God’s heart is. Life may not be about us, but the reality is that when we let Him work in us, we benefit the most! He seeks to save those who are lost. We are the Spirit’s mouthpiece. What can we do about it? It’s not about us, but Jesus. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).