God's Plan for Significance

According to our world, power and position are the only tools needed to bring about change, but Jesus flipped this idea on its head. The Jews thought the Messiah would come in power and position to destroy Rome in order to pass the power and position to the Jews. But this idea came crashing down when the position Jesus took was to hang on a cross. No one understood when the Son of God gave up his power in exchange for death. Jesus proved that the way to lasting change is through humility and that power is found in radical compassion. Jesus had every reason to boast, yet he took the place of humility. He had the power to strike down every guilty person who held him on trial, yet he took the guilty verdict to the point of death. His compassion and love for his people held him on that cross until God’s will was complete. If we are to take the way of the cross as we give our lives to God’s Kingdom, we will not seek power and position, but humility and compassion. It is shocking when great change takes place without power and position. The world doesn’t expect it and doesn’t understand it. As we pursue more wealth, recognition, status, and authority in order to make finite changes, God is calling us to invest in a humble and compassionate Kingdom that lasts forever. He loves to call us with our sad little resumes of what we think qualifies us to do his work and instead, equip us with what we really need to do his work. Reflection/Discussion Question: Are you pursuing power and position, or humility and compassion when it comes to doing God’s work?

Hopelessness, pessimism, and criticism have a way of spreading like wild fire. When the twelve spies returned from the Promised Land, ten of them immediately spread negativity that infected everyone. The group took on the perspective of those ten spies and collectively forgot all that God had done for them to fulfill his promises and get them to this point. With this perspective, they were angry with God and distrusted his word. They put down the weapons of God, picked up the weapons of the world, and found that their strength won’t be enough. Satan would like us to believe that this kind of negative perspective is “realistic” so that we take our eyes off of God and onto our circumstances. Satan wants us to look at our circumstances, our strength, our resources, and ask, “Did God really say?” If he can get us to distrust God, he can get us to do anything. But Joshua and Caleb keep a perspective that sees their situation through the truth of God. While the ten spies returned with reasons to be afraid, Joshua and Caleb returned with assurance of victory. All twelve spies saw the same thing, but only two saw it from God’s perspective. It’s easy to roll our eyes at the ten and side with the two, until we realize that we are more like the ten in our own lives. We look at our circumstances, our time, our resources, our situation and forget God completely. But God looks at our circumstances, our time, our resources, our situation and he sees something different. He sees his promise to never leave us, to finish his work in us, to give us grace in our time of need, to give us hope and a future. We don’t have to fall victim to the hopelessness that is spreading like a disease in our world. We can cling to God, knowing that he will give us his perspective in all circumstances. Reflection/Discussion Question: When do you find yourself most often falling into a hopeless, pessimistic, or critical perspective?