Author: Brian Burdett

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8:36

You may have all the billions of the wealthiest entrepreneurs, all the trophies of the greatest athletes, and all the fame of those famous for being famous, but you’ll lose it all (from your perspective) within a few years regardless. When you die, none of those things will go with you into eternity. Whether your life be long or short by human standards, even a hundred years of wealth, success, and fame is nothing compared to forever.

Jesus regularly invites us to re-think what’s important in our lives. The things our culture and instincts say are important have little lasting significance. What matters is where we will spend the untold billions of years after we die. What matters is the treasure, rewards, and commendations of God we send ahead of us into eternity through faithfulness here on earth.

Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is the only thing that determines where we’ll spend eternity. The only thing. The things we’ll enjoy in heaven as followers of Christ have nothing to do with our earthly fame, success, or bank balance. What matters for all eternity are the lives we influence for Christ, our faithfulness in serving and humbly following Jesus day after day, and how well we manage the resources, time, and talents God blesses us with.

Never trade your faith, your faithfulness, your Christian integrity, or your Gospel witness for the sake of earthly rewards! They simply won’t last. What will? “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)

“And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.” – Exodus 36:2

Every follower of Jesus receives one or more gifts from the Holy Spirit in addition to their existing skills, talents, and expertise. All these are given by God to do the work of His Kingdom and His church. Just as Moses called gifted and skilled workers to build the Tabernacle, God is calling each of us to serve Him through a local church.

What is God stirring up in your heart? How has He gifted you through the Holy Spirit, the experiences of your life, and the talents you were born with or developed? How can you use those to make a difference in the lives of others, in the service of God’s Kingdom, and in strengthening of Christ’s bride, the church?

It’s easy to assume that calling and gifting are someone else’s department, but Scripture makes plain that every Christian has work to do. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This past year, many have had far more time to reflect than usual. As the world gradually begins to emerge from crisis, what good works has God prepared for you? What service or skill do you have that your local church needs? What work of God lies in your future?

“Moses said, ‘Please show me your glory.’” – Exodus 33:18

We would do well to spend more time thinking about God’s glory. God’s glory is the radiant outshining of all His wondrous attributes, the vast accumulated weight of Who He Is. All-powerful. All-knowing. Ever-present. Infinitely wise, good, kind, merciful, gracious, just, holy, righteous, patient, faithful, loving, and so much more. Sovereignly in control and meticulously concerned for His creation. Try to imagine all that, made visible.

The experience of God’s glory is so overwhelming that few have been able to see it. The day-to-day experience of God’s glory was lost because of mankind’s fall into sin. Nonetheless, a few have caught a glimpse. Moses could see God’s back, but not His face. Peter, James, and John briefly saw the glory of Christ as He was changed before their eyes and it changed them forever.

We catch glimpses of God’s glory in the beauty of a sunrise, the vastness of space, and the extraordinary process leading from conception to the birth of a child. What we see should make us hungry for more! Let us desire to see more of God’s glory and to be increasingly aware of His majesty as we enjoy our Christian privilege of worshiping, praying, and relating to our glorious God in Heaven.

The greater experience of God’s glory is what lies before every follower of Christ. One day, we will live forever in God’s glorious presence. The experience of that will be so vastly beyond our greatest earthly pleasures, delights, and satisfactions that it defies imagination. May the contemplation of God’s glory stir a hunger within you to pursue Him more and more, as you look ahead to your future in Christ!

“Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.”
– Psalm 25:4

God has made His ways known to us through His Son (the Word made flesh) and His Word, the Bible. Jesus Christ is the exact image of our invisible God and the Bible is God’s inspired Word revealed through the prophets, apostles, and evangelists of old writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Between them, we have what we need to find salvation through faith in Christ and to pursue a life of Christ-like obedience to the ways of God as we walk His paths.

However, we have terribly short memories! We quickly forget God’s ways and stray from His paths. The chaos and noise all around us help foster this amnesia. The passions and preferences of our bodies and minds tempt us away from following Christ and pursuing personal holiness. This is why we must encounter God’s Son and His Word daily! A once-a-week fill up on Sunday won’t suffice to keep us growing in Christ-likeness. Nor will merely reading about the Jesus or about the Bible. We must read it for ourselves!

We must make a daily encounter with Jesus and the Bible an unshakably high priority. We must set our time with God and His Son in prayer, and His Word in study and meditation apart as the most important appointment of our day, one which is never canceled except in the most extreme of emergencies. Every follower of Christ is gifted with the Holy Spirit to teach us the meaning of the Bible. Every follower of Christ has with what we need to read, study, meditate, and pray daily. But we must make the effort to do so, for it’s only then that we’ll consistently grow in our knowledge and remembrance of God’s ways and walk in His paths.

“But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” – Mark 4:38-39

If we’re honest, we’re like the disciples sometimes, aren’t we? The storms of life come, wind begins to blow fiercely, waves start crashing over the side, and we feel like we’re sinking. We’re overwhelmed, beyond our resources, and we begin to doubt. We question the goodness of Jesus. We question whether He’s paying attention. We question whether He’s present at all and whether He cares.

While the point of this story is to demonstrate Jesus’ absolute power over the most powerful and chaotic forces of nature, we should not miss its setting within a series of stories demonstrating His absolute power over everything natural and supernatural. Everything. Let us draw strength from the fact that He’s promised to always be with us until His physical return. Whatever storm we face, as Christians, Jesus is always in our boat.

Yes, it will storm sometimes. We may rightly hate the storms, but we’re reminded here that Jesus sometimes permits them for our own growth in faith. We’re reminded that what we think is a crisis isn’t always as serious as it seems, because Jesus is with us. We’re reminded that Jesus has complete power over the storms of our lives, so we can trust that He’ll accomplish His purpose for us, even through the fear and suffering. We can also trust that just as He has the power to calm any storm, He also has the power to calm us as He journeys with us through that storm. Many times, that’s even more important for our growth in Christ! Peace! Be still!