What Are Your Expectations?

19 Oct

“As preachers of the gospel of Jesus, do not expect worldly honors: these Jesus Christ neither took to himself, nor gave to his disciples.” ~ Adam Clarke

People often make choices based upon what they will receive.  No one looks at an opportunity, sees that it will bring nothing but pain and anguish, and says, “Yes!  That’s what I want!”  No.  They shy away from that.  Instead, they look for opportunities that will give them recognition, reward, honor, or praise.  They look at what will make them money.  They look at what will boost their opportunity for advancement.

That is precisely the kind of people we are not to be.  If we are to advance at all, it should be in honesty, humility, mercy, and love.  These are the things that Jesus cared about, not human recognition.

Jesus never did anything so that He could be recognized or praised.  He always did what His Father wanted of Him, even if that meant embracing a cross, carrying it to Calvary, and dying.  Often, Jesus would remind us that, as He did, so we, too, must do.

Our life is not about building ourselves up.  It is about serving the Lord, about embracing and carrying our cross, and about giving everything back to God.  We do that by serving others and not expecting return.  We accomplish that by pointing to God and not ourselves.

If worldly honors should come our way — they often do if we are doing our job correctly — that is fine.  However, we should not let those honors cloud our decisions.  As nice as worldly honors can be, they can often distract us from the path to the Kingdom.

We have a job to do.  That job is to promote God and God’s Kingdom.  That job is to love.  That job is to serve.  That job is to be humble.  That job is to point the way to God.

Let’s be busy about our job this day.

FAITH ACTION:  Ask the Lord to give you what you need today in order to do His will.