Watching that movie made me recognize what things need to happen in order for Christ to finally return and rebuild His kingdom on the earth. Missionaries, social entrepreneurs like me and advocates who promote natural human rights are going to usher our world into the return of Christ. If in fact we do end up with a worldwide currency that is so popularly predicted and already currently in the form of proposals by world leading countries, the economic condition of each individual nation must be leveled off equally to where it is economically possible to no longer have an exchange rate. For us to reach that level, we need to keep doing what we are doing: micro-financing and aid work to help bring people out of extreme poverty and disease. With the way our Christian culture is here in the U.S. it is easy to think about the “end times” and the return of Christ with negative connotation when in fact we should be anticipating it. Though it will be difficult at first, we know what the end result is and should be excited about the fact that our God is going to rebuild his kingdom on the earth He created so that it could be perfected and we can have life in eternity as we were meant to live.
We need to stop allowing ourselves to feel useless and worthless. It only keeps us from recognizing that I alone can accomplish a certain task given specifically to me by God. I have to put my own plans and goals aside in order to experience the purpose God had in mind for me since the day I was born. He did not have to give me these tasks. I am useless without Him. ALL I AM NOT, HE IS. [And I am nothing.]
I have to stop looking in the mirror and thinking that everything I am worth comes from the feautres I can see about myself- my skills, my looks, my possessions; my achievements. My value was nailed to a cross. My value was raised to life. I need to come to grips with the fact that He is what defines and solidifies my worth. If I keep searching for treasures on this earth or something to gratify my longings on this earth I will be chasing the wind for the rest of my life. It would also be a chase after the wind if I find my value in outdoing someone else in my successes. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35). That’s what I want to push myself in. That’s what I need to push myself to compete against others in with all of my life and for the rest of my life. If I can’t love my sisters or my brothers, I cannot possibly love God. I can’t accomplish anything without others alongside me. I can’t keep living like I’m the only one that needs to save the world. It is not just my responsibility, or even the responsibility of my nation. It is the responsibility of every individual that calls themselves a follower of Christ. If we are called followers, why are we constantly trying to pave our own road instead of following the trail Christ has already left for us? Why is it that we are just now grasping His calling on our lives to meet the needs of people around us when it is constantly mentioned in the word? How much of his voice have we ignored?
“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
(Mother Teresa)
Lord, you’ve given us a mind, logic, hands, feet, and a voice so that we could be practical in our worship. Show us how to really live. Let your love transform us so deeply that we see our fellow man with your eyes. We have such universal needs and desires. We cannot pretend like we are separated by culture anymore.
When you sent your son to this earth, his desires were your same desires. He was willing. He said, "I will go for their sake. I will go for them!"
In a speech he gave in 1965 at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, then Senator Bobby Kennedy talked about how the world was changing, and said the following:
"Everywhere [that] new technology and communications bring men and nations closer together, the concerns of one inevitably become the concerns of all. And our new closeness is stripping away the false masks, the illusion of differences which is at the root of injustice and hate and war. Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning superstition that his world is bound by the nearest hill, his universe ends at river's shore, his common humanity is enclosed in the tight circle of those who share his town or his views and the color of his skin."
He went on to say to a group of students: "It is your job, the task of the young people in this world to strip the last remnants of that ancient cruel belief from the civilization of man."
We need each other. We need to love each other.
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