Goals Greater Than Human Splendor

Many believers lack spiritual motivation because they do not have a goal
any greater than merely serving and pleasing themselves. In order to arrive 
at a place of genuine significance...the place to which God has destined us
from the beginning...we must become vitally and essentially connected to
a CAUSE for which we are willing to live out and for which we are willing to
die. It is then that we will begin to live the life that transcends the ordinary.
 
Jesus challenged His disciples in John 14: 12- 16 by stating, "If you believe in
Me(adhere to Me under all circumstances, trust in Me with all your hearts,
and remain constant in that commitment), the works that I do shall you do
also...and greater works than these shall you do..." He then adds, "...and I
will stand on your behalf before the Father." Everything hinges on our full
and absolute faith commitment to Him.
 
During the great counter-revolution in China in the first quarter of the 20th
century when the communist took over the nation, the persecution of the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ became extremely fierce...so much so that
many of the missionaries from the United States and Europe began to flee
mainland China. Many of the national leaders acquiesced to the pressure
that was being exerted on them as well. But Peter and Betty Stam determined
to remain in China to encourage and to strengthen the faith of the believers.
 
They knew they were taking a great risk, but they reasoned, "This this reason
 we came to China." Eventually they were arrested and publicly beheaded by
the communist regime as examples to those who would attempt to bear
witness to the Christian Faith. Many of the believers who focused on the leaders
and the missionaries who fled or compromised with Communists grew weary and
became discouraged losing their faith in God. But those who focused on the leaders
who willingly laid down their lives or who endured the cruel torture dished out to
them by the godless regime were strengthened in the faith and dedicated
themselves to serve God faithfully regardless of the outcome.
 
Though they suffered many atrocities and unimaginable hardships and were
finally forced to the underground, they held firmly to a faith they could live
out, and if necessary, they could die for. The result is that from a small group of
a few thousand at that early time in the twentieth century, braving every kind
of horrible condition wreaked upon them, they grew to more than two hundred
million in just over seventy-five years.
 
Even today under the pressure of that continuing godless regime, still determined
to stamp them out, the Church prevails. More than 16 million people, most of them
young men and women, are coming to Christ every year. Being filled with the Holy
Spirit and standing boldly for the faith. The projection of the experts on such matters
it that by the year 2020, China will be the largest Christian nation in the world with
well over four hundred million true believers.
 
Just think what it might have been like when they were taking Peter out of prison to
the place of his public crucifixion. Someone might have derisively asked, "Well, Mr.
Peter, what have you got to say today?" Peter probably would have replied like this:
"Well, I'm going with these guards out to what they think is my final destiny. But the
fact is I have an appointment with my Heavenly Father this afternoon, so I'm really
going home."
 
A young man came into my office a few months ago. He was hobbling on a walker,
had slightly slurred speech, and demonstrated obvious difficulty with eye and hand
co-ordination. I learned that he'd recently suffered two very serious strokes. He told
me a very sad story, He said, "You know that I came to this church when I was just a
teenager, but I was so focused on living my own life that I didn't pay much heed to
the things you preached...even though I heard it plainly."
 
He continued, "I got into drugs and booze and the wild life with the wayward youth
of our city. Even though I went to Bible School and studied the things of God, to me
it was just a religious game. Even when I lost my wife and children and a bit later
suffered the first stroke, I said, 'I can cope with this; I can overcome in my own
strength,' but sometime later when the second stroke hit me, I realized that I had
stepped in over my head and apart from Gods grace there was nothing I could do."
 
What a sad and even tragic thing it was to look upon that young man so changed by
sin that I had not recognized him for several minutes...a young man in his mid-thirties
rendered almost helpless by the pursuit of the pleasures of this earthly life without
God. He readily admitted that he had chosen the "broad way that leads to ruin and
destruction having placed no value on the word of truth which he had heard for
several years.
 
He departed saying, "If you would like me to come sometime and share with your
youth the futility of living life without purpose, I would welcome the opportunity.
I would tell them that the high cost of low living is truly the most horrible way of
life."
 
How sad it is when we lack the motivation to what is right, what is noble and what is
eternal in life. We'll look a bit further into thin in the next post.