We Need Each Other: To Work With

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

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God put us on earth to do a certain work that only we can do. Ephesians says that God made us to do good works and that he planned in advance what we would live our lives doing. However, he didn’t plan for us to do that work alone. We need people to work with us.

You know the feeling you get when you do too much work on your own. You get exhausted and burned out. Why? Because you’re trying to do your work alone, while God never meant for you to go through life working alone.

God tells us in Ecclesiastes 4:9 that “two people are better than one, because they get more done by working together” (NCV). When you work as a team, you get so much more done. Plus, having good teammates alongside you is a whole lot more fun and less tiring!

Picture this: Individually, each of us is like a snowflake; on our own, we can’t make a big difference. However, when one fragile snowflake sticks together with a lot of other snowflakes, they can stop traffic. Like snowflakes, we can make a big difference if we work together, each one of us doing only our small part.

Did you know that when we work together here on earth, we’re actually practicing for eternity? In heaven, we will all have to work, but each of us will have just a small piece of work, so we’ll never get overloaded or tired. Still, though no one will carry a heavy burden as each one of us does our small part, all the work will get done.

As you walk through life, remember that you’re not supposed to do everything on your own. You need other people to walk alongside you, but you also need other people to work alongside you. As you share the burden of your work with fellow Christians, you’ll find that you actually accomplish more for the glory of God.

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Risks in Faith: God Multiplies

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

2 Corinthians 9:10 (NIV)

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If you give God your time, he multiplies it. If you give him your money or energy, he multiplies those too. It’s like planting seeds. Farmers know that seeds must be given away – sacrificed by being buried in the ground – to do any good. If you keep a seed in a sack, it does no good, but if you plant it, it multiplies. For example, when you plant just one watermelon seed, you get a bunch of watermelons with hundreds of seeds in them. In the same way, God multiplies whatever you give him.

What’s the key ingredient in this seed planting? Faith. But we have to understand the difference between faith and bargaining. Bargaining is when you say, “God, help me close this deal and I’ll give you part of it.” But God doesn’t work that way. God asks for faith – he wants us to sacrifice in advance, not knowing that we’ll get anything in return –then he wants us to let him figure out how to repay us.

One of the great lessons that Kay and I have learned is that you cannot out-give God. Whatever you give him, he multiplies. Three different times in our marriage, God told us to give away our entire savings. Each time we obeyed, and each time God restored our finances in greater ways than ever before.

I’ll never forget one of our church building campaigns. Kay and I prayed about how much to give, and God told us to give an amount equal to one year’s salary. I didn’t know how we would live for an entire year without a salary, but we obeyed God.

About a month later, we saw God’s plan when a publisher asked me to write a book and offered an advance of $100,000. That book became The Purpose Driven Church.

Jesus makes us this promise in Luke 18:29-30: “I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life” (NIV).

And 1 Corinthians 15:58 says: “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (NIV).

Remember, when you give a seed in faith to God, he will multiply it.

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SPIRITUAL TENSIONS

“The father instantly replied, “I do believe, but help me not to doubt”

Mark 9:24 NLT

After spiritual birth comes the tension of spiritual growth. The new life imparted to us by faith in Christ comes into a consistent collision with the old nature that is still inside us, the nature that has governed all our lives in the darkness of sin. As light came into our soul by faith in Christ a real tension is experienced. Tension between the spirit and the flesh, between self effort and faith and the adjustment is never easy.

It’s not going to get away as long as we are in this mortal body. Somehow the tension between faith and doubt exist as a persistent reminder that it is not our design to be independent from God. And that our freedom in Christ is not a declaration of independence but a declaration of dependence on Christ alone. This is the way we overcome the tension not by getting rid of it but by total surrender daily to Jesus. It is a timely reminder of Chuck’s Swindoll that our goal is progress not perfection. This is really comforting as well as convicting.

The statement of this nameless father in the gospel of Mark is not only true for himself, in the same manner I think if feel the same. Part of me says God is trust worthy and then a moment later I doubt his trustworthiness. Like ants in the pants doubts keep faith moving. Yet to a certain degree it’s so frustrating that we are unable to really become stalwart saints of great faith. I think progress starts when we admit the tension instead of hide it. It’s called vulnerability.

The existence of such vulnerability must not be used as a license to remain hostage of fear or to wallow in unbelief rather it is a jumping board to find help from God that we may live by faith. And by that we mean trusting that God will do what is right in his own eyes, that’s faith! The naïve ones have tried to erase the tension by giving false hope or putting the blame to someone’s defective faith, especially when things don’t turn out the way we expect them to be. Because of the tendency to doubt many chose to doubt the authenticity of their faith. It’s comforting to recall that Jesus did not rebuke the man for his statement.

Admitting doubt and desperately asking for help is the beginning of victory over the spiritual tensions. Yes it won’t go away, but God makes a way that we overcome and experience victory in Christ. The tension is dealt with when we admit it and CRY to God for help! As we probe deeper in this new life we see more spiritual tensions between our ways versus God’s way, our desire versus God’s design and many more. Again what matters most is as we face these challenging and irritating tensions we can rely that our Lord walks with us! It really helps when we say admit our helplessness that we may find help from Jesus! The goal is progress not perfection and pretending we’re strong won’t help!

Rev. Arnel Tan

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