[I Cor 15:10] “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove in vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
I cannot remember one single time in the past thirteen years that I went to bed at night having accomplished everything I wanted to. Every day of my life I am haunted by the sobering truth that there are prayers left unsaid, there are Bible passages left unstudied, there are lost souls still to talk to about the reality of Jesus Christ, there are sermons to prepare and preach, people to disciple, books and articles to write, a wife to love, children to lead, and a God to walk deeply and intimately with. It is at times a frustrating and agonizing life to lead. I want to do more for my God.
I once read a statement that pastor, theologian, and author John Piper saw in his home while growing up as a little boy on a little plague which simply read, “There is only one life to live and twill soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last.” That bites into my soul. I DO NOT WANT TO WASTE MY LIFE! That nagging thought haunts, disturbs, and preoccupies me! The Psalmist put it another way. “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” [Ps 91:12]
I want my life to count but the truth is I lose heart from time to time, I grow weary, become lazy, and lose focus. Even though there is so much work to be done, I meander through life on certain days thinking I have all the time in the world. The truth is my days are numbered. They will come to an end. There are things God put me on this earth to accomplish. There are certain works I am to do for Him. [Eph 2:10] I must find the secret to relentless labors.
I love Christian biography and autobiographies. I am reading a book on the life of George Mueller and see the pattern of his life to rise at 4:00 a.m. to pray and read his bible well over two hundred times. I just heard a message on the life of George Whitfield where he preached at least one message everyday of his life for thirty years. Many days he preached multiple times and lead thousands upon thousands to Christ. He preached himself to an early death in his mid-fifties. I have read about Charles Hadden Spurgeon and how he preached and wrote relentlessly. He left a massive literary contribution in the wake of his life. D.L. Moody was tireless in his efforts to present the gospel to the lost and pledged to not let a day go by without talking to someone about the Savior, (even dragging his weary frame from bed on a cold rainy night after remembering he neglected his commitment.) Jonathan Edwards studied up to thirteen hours a day while Martin Luther studied and preached ushering in the age of the reformation. I could go on and list the accomplishments of A.W. Tozer, E.M. Bounds, Rees Howells, Richard Baxter, Martin Lloyd Jones, Hudson Taylor, William Tyndale, and William Carey.
Reading these books is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is the inspiration I get from reading them but the curse is the frustration of not feeling like my labors are as relentless as theirs. They lived with a passion, a zeal, a fire that burned in their souls that burned brighter than I have ever burned and was sustained longer than fire has burned in my soul.
Yet, I am not about to give up. I know the secret is not found in me. Paul simply acknowledged that he was an ordinary man. He was a driven man consumed by the saving reality of Jesus Christ. Notice what he wrote in I Cor 15:10, “… but I labored even more than all of you, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” The secret to Paul’s relentless labors was not in being more disciplined or driven. The secret was the fact that God was the one at work in and through Paul to allow Him to labor more than the others.
I find many believers are asking God how much less they can do. Are there people in the pews who are really asking God for more? Do men and women, students and children, senior and young adults really hunger and yearn to labor more for Christ? I do. It burns in me and aches in my soul. At the moment of writing this it is nearing 7:00 p.m. and writing this has consumed me. The time has passed and I have hardly been aware of it. Instead of feeling tired, overwhelmed, burned out on the contrary my soul feels rejuvenated and alive! God is moving in me to do more, be more, believe more, and bear more fruit. He is glorified by such living. [Jn 15:8] It is not me but Him!
When I attempt to do more in the power of my flesh I fail, I burn out, and yearn for an easier life. When I am submitted to the Lord, He enables me to wear the harness of discipline with ease. He wakes me early and strengthens me to labor late. O how I long to be more surrendered. I want to preach my guts out every time I enter the pulpit with life giving spiritual meat for this congregation. I want to write volumes worth of books to pour out all the truth the Lord brands on my heart to share with others. At the time of this writing I have over forty book titles and ideas burning in my mind and heart waiting to be lassoed and corralled onto the printed page. I have close to a dozen souls I am praying for the Lord to save and call them to whole hearted service to Him. I believe God for dreams that stagger my knees and yet ignite my faith. God keeps giving me more and more and with joy I step into the harness of His will for my life and pull His gospel wagon with all my might and yet more so with His might working mightily in me.
I want to labor for the cause of Christ relentlessly while not neglecting my wife and four boys. It is a constant juggling act. I feel the daily tug of war to work later and later and yet the needs and wants of my family are constant. I cannot neglect them. They came by my office after school earlier this week and invited me to go and eat ice cream with them. In my soul I wanted to work, pray, study, write, or read into the late night hours but in my heart I felt it was important that my family knew I loved them and wanted to be available to them. It is a constant battle in my soul.
Here is what I believe the Lord will do in me. If I surrender my life and make it available to Him, He will enable me to live on less sleep which means more productive hours for Him. He will honor those times I enjoy with my family by giving greater efficiency in laboring when I have the chance to toil in effect allowing me to double and triple the work I would have accomplished for Him in my own strength. If He works in me and through me He can sustain my health in giving me a long life allowing me to work longer and harder therefore enabling me to leave a larger basket of fruit for His glory.
I know many might think this is dangerous ground and very close to workaholism. Maybe so. God can bring the needed balance. All I know is one day the death dew is going to settle on my brow and my life and ministry on earth will be done. At that point what will I have left behind? It is an all consuming burning passion in my heart that somebody would attend my funeral and hear what Christ did in me and through me and be inspired to live for Christ with greater passion and tenacity. I want people to gather in little huddles and say afterwards, “That is what can do through a life that was yielded to Christ.” I want to them to say about my life what the apostle wrote about his own, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” [Phil 1:21]
I hope and pray I have forty to fifty years left to labor for my Lord. I have asked Him for that repeatedly. I think retirement is over exaggerated and have no plans to ever retire from preaching and writing. There may be a time I step down from being a full time pastor if I become ineffective and irrelevant. If and when that day comes I will enter a full time traveling ministry and go until my feeble body is unable to mount the steps of into the pulpit anymore in different towns and churches around the world. If at that time my mind is sharp and my voice still able I plan to be wheeled into the pulpit. If my voice should ever fail I will write until my fingers or eyes can no longer hit the letters on the keys of the computer or see the screen. Should that day ever come I hope to have an acute mind to dictate the truths the Lord gives me to some willing servant who will capture them for others to read. I want my lasting legacy to be Christ. When the last second of the last minute of my life comes and I am about to step triumphantly into eternity, I want to do so knowing I gave my all to Jesus and hearing the Lord say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Until that day comes, may our Glorious Savior, labor relentlessly through this willing servant.
I cannot remember one single time in the past thirteen years that I went to bed at night having accomplished everything I wanted to. Every day of my life I am haunted by the sobering truth that there are prayers left unsaid, there are Bible passages left unstudied, there are lost souls still to talk to about the reality of Jesus Christ, there are sermons to prepare and preach, people to disciple, books and articles to write, a wife to love, children to lead, and a God to walk deeply and intimately with. It is at times a frustrating and agonizing life to lead. I want to do more for my God.
I once read a statement that pastor, theologian, and author John Piper saw in his home while growing up as a little boy on a little plague which simply read, “There is only one life to live and twill soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last.” That bites into my soul. I DO NOT WANT TO WASTE MY LIFE! That nagging thought haunts, disturbs, and preoccupies me! The Psalmist put it another way. “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” [Ps 91:12]
I want my life to count but the truth is I lose heart from time to time, I grow weary, become lazy, and lose focus. Even though there is so much work to be done, I meander through life on certain days thinking I have all the time in the world. The truth is my days are numbered. They will come to an end. There are things God put me on this earth to accomplish. There are certain works I am to do for Him. [Eph 2:10] I must find the secret to relentless labors.
I love Christian biography and autobiographies. I am reading a book on the life of George Mueller and see the pattern of his life to rise at 4:00 a.m. to pray and read his bible well over two hundred times. I just heard a message on the life of George Whitfield where he preached at least one message everyday of his life for thirty years. Many days he preached multiple times and lead thousands upon thousands to Christ. He preached himself to an early death in his mid-fifties. I have read about Charles Hadden Spurgeon and how he preached and wrote relentlessly. He left a massive literary contribution in the wake of his life. D.L. Moody was tireless in his efforts to present the gospel to the lost and pledged to not let a day go by without talking to someone about the Savior, (even dragging his weary frame from bed on a cold rainy night after remembering he neglected his commitment.) Jonathan Edwards studied up to thirteen hours a day while Martin Luther studied and preached ushering in the age of the reformation. I could go on and list the accomplishments of A.W. Tozer, E.M. Bounds, Rees Howells, Richard Baxter, Martin Lloyd Jones, Hudson Taylor, William Tyndale, and William Carey.
Reading these books is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is the inspiration I get from reading them but the curse is the frustration of not feeling like my labors are as relentless as theirs. They lived with a passion, a zeal, a fire that burned in their souls that burned brighter than I have ever burned and was sustained longer than fire has burned in my soul.
Yet, I am not about to give up. I know the secret is not found in me. Paul simply acknowledged that he was an ordinary man. He was a driven man consumed by the saving reality of Jesus Christ. Notice what he wrote in I Cor 15:10, “… but I labored even more than all of you, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” The secret to Paul’s relentless labors was not in being more disciplined or driven. The secret was the fact that God was the one at work in and through Paul to allow Him to labor more than the others.
I find many believers are asking God how much less they can do. Are there people in the pews who are really asking God for more? Do men and women, students and children, senior and young adults really hunger and yearn to labor more for Christ? I do. It burns in me and aches in my soul. At the moment of writing this it is nearing 7:00 p.m. and writing this has consumed me. The time has passed and I have hardly been aware of it. Instead of feeling tired, overwhelmed, burned out on the contrary my soul feels rejuvenated and alive! God is moving in me to do more, be more, believe more, and bear more fruit. He is glorified by such living. [Jn 15:8] It is not me but Him!
When I attempt to do more in the power of my flesh I fail, I burn out, and yearn for an easier life. When I am submitted to the Lord, He enables me to wear the harness of discipline with ease. He wakes me early and strengthens me to labor late. O how I long to be more surrendered. I want to preach my guts out every time I enter the pulpit with life giving spiritual meat for this congregation. I want to write volumes worth of books to pour out all the truth the Lord brands on my heart to share with others. At the time of this writing I have over forty book titles and ideas burning in my mind and heart waiting to be lassoed and corralled onto the printed page. I have close to a dozen souls I am praying for the Lord to save and call them to whole hearted service to Him. I believe God for dreams that stagger my knees and yet ignite my faith. God keeps giving me more and more and with joy I step into the harness of His will for my life and pull His gospel wagon with all my might and yet more so with His might working mightily in me.
I want to labor for the cause of Christ relentlessly while not neglecting my wife and four boys. It is a constant juggling act. I feel the daily tug of war to work later and later and yet the needs and wants of my family are constant. I cannot neglect them. They came by my office after school earlier this week and invited me to go and eat ice cream with them. In my soul I wanted to work, pray, study, write, or read into the late night hours but in my heart I felt it was important that my family knew I loved them and wanted to be available to them. It is a constant battle in my soul.
Here is what I believe the Lord will do in me. If I surrender my life and make it available to Him, He will enable me to live on less sleep which means more productive hours for Him. He will honor those times I enjoy with my family by giving greater efficiency in laboring when I have the chance to toil in effect allowing me to double and triple the work I would have accomplished for Him in my own strength. If He works in me and through me He can sustain my health in giving me a long life allowing me to work longer and harder therefore enabling me to leave a larger basket of fruit for His glory.
I know many might think this is dangerous ground and very close to workaholism. Maybe so. God can bring the needed balance. All I know is one day the death dew is going to settle on my brow and my life and ministry on earth will be done. At that point what will I have left behind? It is an all consuming burning passion in my heart that somebody would attend my funeral and hear what Christ did in me and through me and be inspired to live for Christ with greater passion and tenacity. I want people to gather in little huddles and say afterwards, “That is what can do through a life that was yielded to Christ.” I want to them to say about my life what the apostle wrote about his own, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” [Phil 1:21]
I hope and pray I have forty to fifty years left to labor for my Lord. I have asked Him for that repeatedly. I think retirement is over exaggerated and have no plans to ever retire from preaching and writing. There may be a time I step down from being a full time pastor if I become ineffective and irrelevant. If and when that day comes I will enter a full time traveling ministry and go until my feeble body is unable to mount the steps of into the pulpit anymore in different towns and churches around the world. If at that time my mind is sharp and my voice still able I plan to be wheeled into the pulpit. If my voice should ever fail I will write until my fingers or eyes can no longer hit the letters on the keys of the computer or see the screen. Should that day ever come I hope to have an acute mind to dictate the truths the Lord gives me to some willing servant who will capture them for others to read. I want my lasting legacy to be Christ. When the last second of the last minute of my life comes and I am about to step triumphantly into eternity, I want to do so knowing I gave my all to Jesus and hearing the Lord say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Until that day comes, may our Glorious Savior, labor relentlessly through this willing servant.
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