But You Must Be!

 

 

 

Remember the story about the rabbit and the tortoise? There was no way the tortoise should have won, but he did. The Rabbit cheated himself. Here the wisest man ever, wrote in effect that no matter what attributes we have there is always time and chance that can intervene. Does that mean we labour in vain, or that it doesn’t matter, fate will have its way? No, Solomon loved to say, “under the sun”, but God is King of all and everything is in His providence. We should not do things half-heartedly. We do our best, while at the same time, we ask the Lord to bless our efforts to accomplish His perfect will. As it is written in Romans 12:11, “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, doing all things as unto Him.”

By living through Him and of Him, whatever happens, He will always be with us. Life isn’t always fair and doesn’t always go the way we think it should go, but through all of this we must always love others as we love ourselves. We are also told that God loves us and He doesn’t make mistakes, He is with us, and we are then commanded to ourselves. Part of this love is trusting and having no fear! As we focus on God’s continual presence in our lives, it also becomes a shield against sin.

At the same time, He gives us the strength and moral compass to do what is right! Psalms 106:3 sums it up clearly, “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!” It is said that one of our fundamental characteristics which separates us from animals is our necessity for justice.

God wants to see us succeed, to be happy and he gives us all the tools to do so. The question is not can we be successful but rather, what is success? As Pastor Tom Cowan once said, “Always look for the better question.” This better question seems to me to be, “What does success mean to me? What does this success look like? I submit to you that searching out what God’s will is for you and aligning yourself with this will – you will be successful.

It all starts with walking in righteousness and speaking what is right. Just like with the story with the talents. If you can be trusted with a little you will be given a lot. If you can’t take the first step your journey will be short. But there is no reason why you can’t have a long and joyous journey.

That is the key. Staying focused, persevering, regardless of what happens. Life is not always fair, but you must be. To win the race you cannot cheat, or it will be a shallow victory. Paul writes that we must run that we may win. To make it a meaningful win, everyone must win.

The second greatest commandment is to Love Others as you Love Yourself. It doesn’t say some, or a few, or only the lovable ones, but everyone. The start of this is to love yourself, accept yourself as you are. God doesn’t make any junk. Only you can do that, only you can make and keep decisions of doing what is right and just.

It can’t get any simpler than that.

We are all equal! The strongest message is to show, to model, and to be an example like Jesus was an example to us. Zig Ziglar wrote it most eloquently, “People don’t care how you know, but rather how much you care.”