IN LIGHT OF ETERNITY

 

Do you remember the biggest problem you faced when you were 9 years-old? Unless you had a traumatic event take place at that time, chances are that you can’t. The problems that we had to deal with when we were children seemed enormous at the time and probably resulted in many frustrating tears. But years later, looking back, they more than likely now look either trivial or long-forgotten. Actually, you probably don’t even have to try and recollect back to your childhood to now see the problems you had just a few years or even months ago in a different light which now makes them look a lot smaller than they appeared at the time. The passage of time tends to give us a different perspective on life and our priorities.

¶ I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
Psalm 37:25

TAKING A LONG-TERM VIEW

It’s difficult when you’re young to think too much about the future. When we’re young we tend to focus on the now. On the other hand, when you’re old it’s too easy to look back over the years of your youth with a host of “If only” regrets. If only I’d…saved my money…listened to my parents…gone to university…said yes…said no…not eaten so much…learned the piano…made more time with those I care about… You can tell when a person has become wise by how they regard their future. A wise person will always take a long-term view of their life. It’s not that they don’t make mistakes now, or even seem to waste time or money occasionally. A wise person takes a long-term view of their life and adjusts their perspective on their present challenges accordingly.

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,
but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5

LIFE IS SHORT

The other week I saw a childhood schoolfriend of one of my children whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. Four days or so after I had seen him I received a phone call from one of his other friends that on the weekend their mutual schoolfriend had been killed in an horrific accident. Today, someone came to see me to tell of a friend of theirs whose child had committed suicide this week. Both of these lives ended tragically and prematurely. When we say, “Life is short” –  it’s easy to think of such youthful tragedies. But the reality is, everyone’s life is short!

F.W. Boreham in 1908 in Hobart Baptist Church where he was the pastor

My hero, F.W. Boreham, was fond of writing in series. He wrote a five volume series on Texts That Changed The World that became a best-seller and still inspires millions of people even today. When he turned 40, he began to write a series in which the first instalment was entitled, On Turning Forty. He wrote the second instalment when he turned 50. He wrote the third when he turned 60. He wrote the fourth when he turned 70, and he wrote his last when he turned 80. As he got older he increased his reflections on some of his regrets. Even though he was one of the world’s most acclaimed preachers and Christian authors – whose books have possibly led thousands to Christ – he said that he had one big regret toward the end of his life and career as a preacher. “I did not preach enough about God!” he lamented. To be sure, he had preached about God’s deeds and acts, the attributes of God’s grace and love, and other peripheral topics associated with the doctrine of God, but he felt great sorrow that he had not preached more about God himself! If only, he said, if only I had presented God for who He truly is then surely more people would have come to see Him as the most beautiful being in the universe whose magnificence and wonderfulness would melt the hardest heart and soften the most resistant. His regret spurs me on to make sure that I know who God truly is and love Him for who He truly is and serve Him because He is who He is. And I daren’t waste a moment in this holy quest because life is short.

¶ A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
Isaiah 40:6-7

 

IN THE END

As F.W. Boreham approached the end of his life, he longed to know God more richly and deeply. This was also the quest of the apostle Paul as he approached his end. He wrote to the Philippians from a jail cell. Even though it appears that he held out hope for an early release from his imprisonment after he was to be brought before Caesar, this hope was not realised.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.
Philippians 3:8-10

“That I may know Him!” Fancy that! The apostle who was struck from his horse by the radiant glory of Christ while on the Persecutor’s Road to Damascus; the apostle whom the resurrected Christ appeared to in a vision and spoke directly to him (Acts 18:9-10); the apostle whom Christ used to raise people from the dead and to heal many people miraculously; and, the apostle who testifies that he was caught up to heaven and saw things too wonderful to reveal — this apostle gets toward the end of his life and states that he doesn’t yet know Christ the way he should! This apostle, the apostle Paul, toward the end of his life begins to see his life and his troubles in the light of eternity. And I am thus assured that in this light many of the problems that we face today will fade from our gaze and vanish as we fix our eyes on the Source of eternity’s Light.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Matthew 16:26

 

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

It Starts Young

Some of life’s greatest lessons catch you by surprise! Some of these surprises initially seem like a routine hit with a pillow which only is it later that you realise it had a non-routine brick among the feathers! One of these recent brick-in-the-pillow moments for me was listening to Horst Schulze. He is now one of the world’s most successful men and widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of people on the planet. As I listened to Horst tell his story, it dawned on me that he too had the same pathway to success and greatness that every other enduring super-high achiever possessed: he started young!

The Bible also contains the stories of some great leaders who were able to achieve the extraordinary.  Without exception, these great people also came up along the same pathway of success which required that they started very young. Joseph the Dreamer, Joshua the Commander, Jeremiah the Prophet, and Jesus the Saviour, all commenced their journey to extraordinary success when they were young. The young person who veers too long from the path of success by rebelling against God and those He has placed in authority over them is jeopardising not only their future but the positive benefit to the futures of many many others! The success that comes from helping many others brings a satisfaction that no party with booze, drugs, and sleaze could ever ever ever come close to! This is why I was so fascinated to hear Horst Schulze’s story.

For Horst it all began when his father took him to the city. It was young Horst’s first time in a city. His father showed him inside a hotel lobby. The young boy stood there amazed at the numbers and types of people in that lobby. He saw bell-boys assisting travellers with their suitcases. He saw desk-clerks pinging bells. He saw managers watching over their staff and directing traffic. And what he saw excited his young mind greatly. He now knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life!

Horst could think of nothing else after he returned to his village. He was so persistent in his pleas to his parents to take him back to the city hotel that eventually his father not only relented but even decided to ask the hotel manager if he would give his pre-employment-age son a job in the hotel – without pay! The manager agreed and young Horst didn’t start a job that day, he started a career that has now led to him being the President of The Ritz-Carlton International Hotel Group. On that first day in that hotel Horst discovered that he loved helping people. Initially he found tremendous happiness from helping a weary traveller with their luggage. He then found new delights in helping people to the room. The more he discovered about the workings of a hotel, the more ways he realised he could help people. Today, he still enjoys the thrill of helping customers experience the world’s best service, but he also now enjoys helping people find a job in his hotels and helping them to do their job well and enjoy it, by learning to serve others. He says that this love of helping by serving particularly occurred when he was assigned to work in the hotel’s restaurant as a waiter. 

Normally, he tells, the Matradee (restaurant manager) is the ‘star’ in a restaurant and is treated like a rock-star by his staff. But in this hotel’s restaurant, the real rock-star was the Head Chef. All the waiters and even the Matradee were in awe of him. He commanded respect. But unlike most Head Chefs, this chef had time for people. When Horst started working as a waiter in this restaurant, the Head Chef came up to him and spoke with him. 

“Who’s the most important person in this restaurant Horst?” he asked the awe-struck boy.

“You?” timidly replied Horst.

“No.“

“The customer?“

“No.“

“You are!” said the Head Chef to Horst, “You are a gentleman serving other ladies and gentlemen tonight Horst! Everything we do tonight can be made better or worse by you!“

This made a great impact on Horst. How he served customers (“ladies and gentlemen”) in that restaurant was the most important thing that was happening that night! As the restaurant opened and began to fill with diners, the Head Chef made an appearance from the kitchen onto the dining room floor amidst rapturous applause from the dinner-suited diners. The Head Chef acknowledged their applause and then gave Horst a wink, as if to say, don’t let their applause for me trick you into thinking that you’re not still the most important person here tonight.

Today, there are 90 Ritz-Carlton Hotels in 29 countries around the world and Horst Schulze is the part-owner, President, and Chief Operating Officer of the world’s most prestigious Hotel chain. They are now regarded as one of the world’s leading customer service orientated businesses which they won many international awards for. Wikipedia notes–

The company grew under the leadership of President and COO Horst Schulze. Schulze instituted a company-wide concentration on both the personal and the data-driven sides of service: He coined the company’s well-known customer/employee-centered motto, “We are Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen” and the set of specific service values (standards) on which The Ritz-Carlton employees base service through the present day.[17] Under his leadership the hotels earned an unprecedented two Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards[18] and grew from four to forty U.S. locations.[19]

Horst attributes his passion to serve others and to do it with excellence to his faith in Christ. After all, Jesus Christ is the Servant of all. Christ is the Ultimate Helper. To love Jesus is to serve Jesus and join with Him in serving those He wants helped. Not many followers of Christ really come to understand this. But history tells us two standout things about those who do: they all started their journey with Christ at a very young age and they all refused to be ordinary just like the crowd around them. 

If you have come to Christ after your teen years, it’s not too late for you – but it is far more difficult for you to overcome years of worldly attitudes, decades of bad habits, and the ease of just going along with the crowd. But by the grace of God, it can be done. However, if you are a young person who has come to know Christ – rather than a young person who goes to church because they are made or expected to by their parents – you probably already feel different. There will be moments of doubt to overcome. There will be times of loneliness to bridle. There will be temptations to resist. But history tells screams to you that it will be well worth it – hang in there! 

When I move into the next phase of my life and begin to look to someone to take the baton from my hand, I am pretty sure it will be to someone whom God has called and equipped from a very young age. This young person may be very be alive today (they may even already be in our church). They will probably have an unusual curiosity about God and the Bible. When in church their heart probably draws them to close their eyes during the times of congregational worship and capture a vision of God in Heaven surrounded by trillions of mighty angels singing their adoration of Him. As the preacher preaches, they will find the questions they had previously asked God that week being answered – as if God was speaking directly through the preacher to them. When they receive instruction in our Kids Church they will probably gladly be memorising the assigned memory-verses of the Bible. They will probably grow up with a very keen sense of right and wrong – which could cause their sometimes-compromising parents some irritation.

In the meantime, you might be the lady or the gentleman who encourages them with an appropriate word or wink, just like the Head Chef did for Horst when he too was a very young man, because when it comes to greatness and success – it starts young.     

But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.
Luke 22:26

Amen.

Andrew Corbett