We wrapped up the last blog referring to Luke 19:13 wherein it speaks
of the ten servants/stewards. The surrounding passage recounts the
master telling his servants, “Occupy until I return.” We’re going to
pick up right at that same point today.
“Occupy” doesn’t mean that I’ll just take up some space and breathe
some free air. It means that I’m supposed to do something. We’re not
called to simply take up space. We’ve been sent here to set some fields
on fire! Now, we have to have some fire before we can spread some fire!
For example, let’s just say it was my birthday, and Ms. Alexandra made
me a birthday cake, as we all know that she bakes, right? You would
proceed to light sixty birthday candles. I know many of you would wonder
why we would need that many. Now let me ask you this: Are you going to
take a match and light just one candle at a time, or are you going to
light one candle and use that same candle to light others?
I have news for us today. We are those candles! God has lit us on fire
so we can light other candles because there’s a great big birthday cake
with a whole lot of candles that need to be ignited! It ought to be
that we are so fired up that when our lives barely touch anything around
us that it automatically blazes as well!
All it takes is simply one life touching another, one candle igniting
another! God has sent us here to be torches and to set the world ablaze.
Actually, that word, “blaze” comes from the Old English, and it was the
word for “torch.” So God wants us to get fired up! “To get fired up”
speaks of passion. Passion will fire you up, and sacrifice will depress
you. Some of y’all think that you’re here on the earth to sacrifice. God
didn’t call you here to sacrifice; He called you here to be obedient!
So get passionate about being obedient to God and that passion will
transform into some fire, and it will bring life to those who are sick
and dying all around us. God wants to set us on fire! He wants to see us
burn with passion. Some of us need some fresh fiyah!
Hallelujah. God has sent us here to take care of business on His
behalf . . . to advance the Kingdom of Christ. In order to do that,
we’re going to have to be driven by passion, not simply motivated by a
sense of sacrifice. I understand sacrifice, I do. When I spent five
years in Haiti, people would come down from the States to visit or do
some mission work. I lived very, very, very humbly back then. I was
broker than broke. People would think I was suffering for Jesus because I
was traveling on top of charcoal trucks or riding on tap taps
everywhere I went. You know, even then, I never saw it as sacrifice. I
was just doing what God called me to do. Come on, somebody! We should
always consider it a privilege to serve the living God.
Do you know that out of six billion people in the world, He has called
you to your specific mission? I would often tell my sons, “Do you know
how few people in the world get to do what we’re doing right now?” In
regard to my forty-year-old son, we’ve been through some stuff
together—in ministry—in life. He’s always been by my side, during the
hard times and many of the good times. So often I would say to him,
“Josh, do you know how many people get to do what we’re doing right
here, sleeping in this jungle? Do you know how many people get to sleep
on a mat, in a jungle in Thailand, eating stuff that we don’t even know
what it is? Praise God! Isn’t this fun?”
I’m going to close here with this simple message. Whatever it is that
God has called you to do and be, simply go for it! The passion that you
have burning on the inside of you WILL cause others to combust around
you as a result.
This is the end of the Fox Tales series. I pray it’s been of value to
you and that the light in you will burn so bright that you won’t even be
able to control or contain all the fields that catch ablaze for God’s
glory!
Grace and peace,
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