That, my friends, is what I had for lunch. And let me tell you, it was delicious.
This will be a pretty short post, because I'm tired. School is at 9:00 tomorrow, which is early. For a college kid at least.
I'm actually laying in bed, not sure what to type. It's just a blank kind of feeling.
We talked in church today about stewardship. Tim, my bible study leader and family friend, used the parable of a rich man who gave three of his servants each some of his money, according to their abilities. One received 10 talents, or 10 days wages. One received 5, and one received 1. The first two invested their talents, and were returned double their original investments. The third, for fear of doing the wrong thing with his master's money, went and buried it in a field, until the master called all of the servants together. To the two who increased, he congratulated them and threw a feast for them. To the other, he shamed him and cursed his name.
What do we learn from this? God has entrusted us with his word, and we are to go out and invest it and bring back the results. Seems relatively straightforward. Our class used the reference to money in this story to parallel with modern day, because money is easy to relate to.
However, I saw something different. Sometimes, we go to invest the Word into someone who is lost without it, and don't get to see our return on investment. In talking to my "rep" from Global Expeditions about my Italy trip this summer, he told me that this trip won't be like the "average" mission trip where the Gospel is preached, and hundreds get saved. He said, "Don't lose heart, but God may only work visibly through one or two people in that week you're there." But I can walk away knowing I invested into someone's life.
"He who began a good work in you, will see it through to completion." I may not see the end result, but I know that the foundation I helped build through the work of God, is the first step.
Scriptures for today. Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
(Luke 14:25; Luke 14:26-33 ESV)
Just some good stuff. We are called to renounce everything we have, to hopelessly devote ourselves to the One that provides for our every need.
-Justin
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