28.3 Revelation – Results

I work in a job where results matter.  If we are honest, we all do.  It is not simply a matter of putting in our time, punching the clock, waiting for the weekend.  We need to work diligently.  We need to work smart.  We need to work with goals in mind, with objectives, with measurements and with outcomes.  We need to work to get results.

Yet, many people don’t.  They put in their time, do only what they are told, blame someone else, and live paycheck to paycheck hanging on to survival.  These are also the people who hate their jobs, are unhappy, dissatisfied, and who seldom get praise, recognition or raises.

What is true for work is also true for life.

Unfortunately, many people go through life simply punching the clock.  They get up, drag through the day, eat, sleep, numb their minds with media or drugs or alcohol and look forward to exiting someday to the great retirement home of heaven.

But, God gave us this life for a purpose and that purpose is to produce results.  What kind of results?  The only ones that matter – eternity results – being a witness to others so that they too can be saved into an eternity in the presence of God.

But, unlike our 8 to 5 jobs, in this one, God, through the Holy Spirit does all the hard work.  He asks, commands, us to only do three things: pray, go, witness.  We don’t have to convince anyone, we don’t have to sell the good news, we don’t have to go into foreign lands or live in poverty.  But we do need to begin each day by asking God to show us how we can be a witness for the good news today.  Sometimes it will be through actions.  Sometimes it will be through words.  Sometimes it will simply be through love.  We can’t sit all by ourselves, we must go into the world.  We can’t be cooped up with media, hiding, but out with others, going, living, doing life together in community.

And with that, results matter.  It isn’t a quota system, if it was the minimum quota would be 1 (yourself).  But it is an area of daily focus.  It is the most important goal and objective.  Not notches of how many souls have been saved, but a life that is ready when God places that one opportunity in front of us.  The one person who is watching you with your kids.  The one person who sees something different in the way you live your life.  The one person who is hurting or homeless or handicapped or a widow or orphan.  The one person who the Holy Spirit has brought to you who is prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive the gift of Jesus if only you would let the Spirit be bold in you.

So, how do you start your day?  Are you dragging out of bed, with dread and grumbling?  Are you trying to get through another day, survive, do your best and hope for the rest, just enjoy life, live for the moment, get what you can today?

Or, are you starting your day with God?  Are you not relying on your strength but on His?  Are you not setting out on your own path, but going joyfully in His?  Are you facing pain and hurt and challenges and dreading them or are you turning all of these over to the one who has faced, lived and defeated them all?  Are you shelled up by yourself and being ashamed of the gospel or are you going boldly, bravely, diligently?

Colossians 3:23-24:

²³ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, ²⁴ since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

My Answers:

5.
broken, fallen, out of control, spinning further into darkness, sin building upon sin, darkness on darkness.  Abominations are paraded as the new norm.  Christianity is openly persecuted daily in every corner of the world.  The sacred is used as a prop for the adulteries of the world. Death surrounds us and sin permeates every pore of the living

6.
a.
2 Cor 4:18,So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal

b.
It is by serving.  I live as a foreigner, living in rental property.  Wealth and power and prestige here are immaterial except to the degree that they help lead others to the promised land.  Everything we know today, heaven and earth, will be thrown into the lake of fire.  Only the things God loves (John 3:16), will be redeemed, bought out, of the refuse, to judgment and eternity.