Tag Archives: contribution

I NEED YOU!!!

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I need you

Hey you!!! Yes! You! The person who is reading this post! I’m talking to you! Now, I really don’t know you, but I want you to know: I NEED YOU! Not only do I need you; THE WORLD NEEDS YOU!!! You are here in this season for a reason; to make your contribution to the solution!

The Creator of the Universe planned it so that you would be born when you were born in order that you might serve this present generation! The time, place and circumstances of your birth were all orchestrated to put you in the best possible position to fulfill your mission. Everything that has happened to you up to this point in your life was all designed to help you reach your maximum potential! Even you reading this blog entry at the time you are reading it is all part of a grand design! You see, you have a set of unique abilities, attributes, talents, and skills that no one else in the world has; that makes you very special and very precious!

Because you are so unique, precious and special, I am really pulling for you because if you don’t reach your full potential, we all lose! Your failure will not be just yours! It will be mine and it will be the world’s! For you see; if you should happen to die without or before making the contribution you were born to make, all of humanity will suffer! You were not sent here just to make a living; you were sent here to make a difference!

Therefore, I want to encourage you to not give up! I know it might be hard; but don’t give up! When the going gets difficult; don’t throw in the towel and quit! And for all of our sakes; don’t you dare commit suicide! I NEED YOU to be the best that you can be because only then will I be able to be my best! You see, I NEED YOU to complete me! You help to make me the person I am, just as I help make you the person you are! A better you makes a better me and a better me makes a better you! So, I am pulling for you!

Now in case you think I’m being overly dramatic, just think about this: What if Jesus had given up in the wilderness of temptation? Where would we be if he had decided the cross was too much to bear? What if Abraham Lincoln had given up on politics after all the defeats he had suffered before he ran for President? What if Martin Luther King Jr., had decided to be content with just being a local pastor in Montgomery, AL? What if all the inventors had given up after their first couple of failures? Now, I hear you! You’re saying: “Well, I’m no inventor and I am certainly no Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr!” And you’re right; you’re not! You are just you! But being you is enough! Being you is all you need to be because all of the people I just named were just being themselves!

I would like to suggest to you that the solutions to many of the present-day ills we are suffering in our society today just might be locked up in the minds of people who have given up on themselves! The answer to cancer could very well be locked up in the mind of some young man who is just wasting his life away, hanging out on the corner! The answer to the AIDs epidemic might be locked up in the mind of some young girl who is selling her body just to feed her babies! Some of the answers may have even died with people who were murdered in senseless killings and some of the answers may have died with some suicide victims who gave up on life!

That is why I am calling you out! I am challenging you to not give up! I am challenging you to not settle for just getting by or just being average and ordinary. I am challenging you to commit yourself to the task of reaching your maximum potential and being the best you that you were born to be! I am challenging you to commit yourself to strive to live a life of excellence! My fate and the fate of the world is depending on it! So don’t ever think that you don’t matter or that you are just a number or just a clog in the cosmic wheel! YOU ARE IMPORTANT! YOU ARE NEEDED! I NEED YOU! THE WORLD NEEDS YOU! Now, get up off of your blessed assurance and be the best you that you can be!

Contribution vs Commitment

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chicken and pig

What is needed in the Christian world today is people who are willing to make a commitment! However, most of our churches are filled with people who are only willing to make a contribution! What is the difference between contribution and commitment? The answer is perfectly illustrated in a story I read recently in Tony Evans’ book: The Kingdom Agenda.” Evans writes: “I like the story of the chicken and the pig who were walking down the street one day when they came to a grocery store with a sign in the window that read: ‘Bacon and Eggs Desperately Needed.’ The chicken looked at the pig and said, ‘I’ll give them the eggs if you’ll give them the bacon.’ The pig stared at the chicken and replied, ‘No way!’ The chicken asked, ‘Why not!’ The pig replied, ‘Because for you it’s just a contribution, but for me it’s total commitment!”

That’s the way it is with many so-called Christians today! They willing to give God an “egg” here and there (church attendance and financial contributions) and they think they’ve given enough! But God is not seeking contributions; God wants total commitment! In Romans 12:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (KJV) From this verse it is obvious that God wants total commitment, not just token contribution! The term “living sacrifice” is an oxymoron. If something is alive; it is not a sacrifice because in the Jewish sacrificial system, there could be not sacrifice given unless a life was taken. Therefore a “living sacrifice” is a call to present God a living dead thing! A life that is dead to self, sin and the world, but alive to God, the Spirit, and the will of God! Jesus described total commitment this way: He said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me daily!” In the days of Jesus, the cross was the instrument of death. Denying self and taking up one’s cross was a call to die! This call is echoed in one of my favorite quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book: “The Cost of Discipleship.” Bonhoeffer wrote: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him, come and die!”

So the question today is this: Are you willing to only make contributions to the cause of Christ or are you willing to make a total commitment with your life? I believe God wants total commitment! He did no less for us! The record says: “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Begotten Son!” The Son so loved that He gave his life! We ought to so love that we give our all in total commitment to Him! There are many Christians today who long for the power and peace that the Word promises, but their lives are filled with anxiety and fear! The reason for this lack of peace and power is the lack of commitment! The problem and the solution was well articulated by a song-writer of old:

You have longed for sweet peace,

And for faith to Increase

And have earnestly, fervently prayed;

But you cannot have rest,

Or be perfectly blest,

Until all on the altar is laid.

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest,

And have peace and sweet rest,

As you yield Him your body and soul!