No Wasted Effort

Colossians 3:1-2 "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth."

This happened some years ago, but I still remember the hard learned lesson.  I was playing a pick-up flag football game  with some buddies, and I was going out for a long pass.  I was wide open when the pass was thrown, but it was heaved past me by a step or two.  Not thinking, and caught up in a moment of competition, I dove hoping to make a great catch.  You guessed it, I missed the ball by inches.  The guy who was covering me caught up and with a big smile hollered, great try, but wasted effort.  I got up and we both laughed, and I knew of course that he was right.  My near spectacular catch left me sore the next couple of days, but my scraped arms and legs took not days but weeks to heal.  I subjected myself to this pain for a missed pass in a meaningless pick-up flag football game.  My hard learned lesson was clear, don't waste energy, effort, or your body on unimportant things.  We all expend a good deal of effort and energy every single day.  I wonder how much of it is wasted effort, spent on things that ought not be top priority in our lives.  The above verses set forth a good challenge on how to spend our energy.  First we are exhorted to seek those things which are in heaven, where the Lord is.  The word "seek" is a strong word, giving the idea of expending energy and effort, literally meaning "strive to find".  We are told to give priority and our best efforts to strive after the things of God.  The next challenge of the verses, is to set our minds on the things above, not on the things on earth.  To "set your minds", is again another strong phrase having to do with our affections.  We are to set our affections toward the heavenly and eternal things, not the earthly and temporal things.  Today you will spend yourself and your energies on something, don't let this day be a day of wasted effort.  Spend your effort today on the things of Christ, if you do I promise it will not be a day of wasted effort.

Let's Be Fools

Hosea 9:7 "....Israel knows!  The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity."

I was standing and preaching in the free speech area at U.C. Irvine, when a professor broke through the crowd of students to stand right in front of me.  Most of the sixty or so students kept their distance from me.  They were standing in a ring around me, I'm guessing about twelve feet away.  As I spoke I would keep turning in a slow circle, but when the professor moved up close within a couple of feet, I stopped my slow spin and spoke just facing her.  I kept thinking she was going to try to enter into a debate at any moment, but she didn't say anything.  By her facial expressions I could see she was unhappy, then after a couple of minutes she sort of dismissed me with a wave of her hand and a loud ttttshshsh sound.  As she walked away shaking her head, her message to me and the students seemed pretty clear, she thought I was an ignorant crazy fool.  I felt a sadness not for what she thought of me, but because at the moment of the ttttshshsh, I wasn't setting forth my concepts or opinions, I was simply reading the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark.  We are living in days that mirror the days of the prophet Hosea.  Things had gotten so bad in Israel that God's prophets were considered fools and those who loved God were thought to be crazy, and yes it is that way today!  How sorry that when we proclaim the words of Jesus we are thought of as fools.  The issue for us today, is are we willing to appear foolish to the world for the sake of the truth?  Will we shine forth the Gospel in an ever darkening world, even if the think we're crazy?  Remember in these last days we shouldn't worry about what the world thinks of us, our main concern is to faithfully and lovingly proclaim our Savior Jesus.