Who Do You Influence?

Today I am writing about something that is close to my heart, what are we here for? What is our purpose? The Bible is very clear about what we should be doing. We should be the change in the world, we are to be the light in the darkness, we are to set the example of the Righteousness of God and we are to love God with all of our heart. Today I am going to build on being the light in the darkness, during a time when the world is hurting from so much corruption and injustice, it is a time for followers of Jesus to step into the calling God has called us to be. It is time for the lamp to be placed on a lamp stand, it is time for the lamp to stop hiding under the bed. Now before you go,”Here Eloy goes again, time for people to wake up etc”, take a breath and read on. What I want to do is to challenge you to be critical to yourself and stop and analyse the way you life your life. Stop and question are you being a wise servant with the talents that God has gifted you? So as you read on, I pray these words help you self analyse and they help you influence the lamp stand God has placed you in, may you be the light in the darkness.

There is one thing that the world can not argue; the death of Jesus changed the world as we know it. What do I mean? After Jesus died Christianity spread to such epic proportions that a pagan empire (Roman) changed to Christianity due to the influence of the Christians on their culture. Is that not mind boggling that it took less than 300 years of Christians being a light in the darkness for a whole empire to be influenced out of pagan worship. Now it was a lot more than just pagan worship that stopped. The Roman Empire was beyond sin filled, sex orgies was considered normal, slavery was normal, homosexuality between old men and young boys was considered normal, torturing for pleasure was considered normal, children sacrifices was considered normal, the sanctification of marriage was truly non existent with women and men alike sleeping with slaves for pleasure. It was a society that had truly fallen from walking a Godly path. Now lets take a note, this change in religion did not happen due to military power (fear of political take over), it did not happen due to threats or persecution (accept our religion or die), it did not happen due to personal gain (become a Christian and pay less taxes or inherit a better quality of life) it happened because the Christian faith had effected the culture and way of living in Rome that it led to an emperor accepting Jesus as his Lord. What happened next led to conversion of a empire to Jesus, which is where sadly things started to go a bit different (not a topic I will discuss, it is not our place to judge or criticise those who believe in Jesus and give Him glory) and we saw behaviours start to change from the Gospel message. If we stop and look at the fundamentals of what was different between then and now we can start to see where and why we are not being the light in the darkness.

What I am about to go in to is something that God has challenged me over and continually challenges me over. In the parable of the servants with the talents, the master doubles what the good servants have done with what they have been given. What God challenges me over; am I doubling what I have been given or am I focusing on what I can do when I have triple or quadruple of what I currently have? It is easy to pray and imagine a revival in a city when I have a crowd of people to talk to, but why would I get to that position if I can not even cause a revival in my house, family, street, neighbourhood or business? Before you start saying, but don’t limit God, the apostles converted thousands on day 1, shhhhhhh and stop. The apostles spent 3 years following Jesus and sold everything they had to follow him before they even understood the Holy Spirit. I’ll just close the thought pattern with Paul went in the Arabia desert alone for 3 years just him and God before he returned and then learnt for another 14 odd years before his ministry began (never mind before this encounter he had dedicated his whole life to studying the scriptures and would have been in a position to quote the Torah and the prophets from memory). So let us stop and think what talents do we truly have at out disposal and are we investing them and using them to benefit Gods kingdom?

The first thing we should look at and grasp, is where has God placed us and why are we placed there? For myself, I am currently based in Dubai, working as performance nutritionist, blessed to be married to a wife with two dogs and one cat. So what are my talents? Now we see from 1 Timothy what are the standards expected for Christian living especially for those within position of authority, there is an expectation to have ones house in order and walking in a Godly manner. So we can say our first priority is to look after our family. As a husband am I representing Jesus to my wife? If you are a wife are you behaving like the body of Christ (the church) is expected to behave towards Jesus? Me and Danielle do not have the gift of children yet so I won’t comment on behaviour or expectations around children, but the Bible is clear about what should be seen/done. When we understand that the Bible is about growing the family of God, relationship, union with our creator and our Father, we can start to grasp why we must start with our home. By being a light in the darkness we have to be different to the rest of the world. This means first and foremost our homes must shine. People should look at our marriages and wonder what is different. When they enquire as to why we are continually happy, why my wife supports me and why her husband is so loving and caring for her, guess what the answer will be? Thats right, Jesus. He is the answer, He is the reason that we believe in a way that inspires others, because He is Lord of our lives He can work and do things in us that are otherwise impossible. Once we have a united home we can start to branch out onto our next gift, employment. What role do we have in society? Now irrespective if you are a CEO, a manager, employee, entrepreneur, house wife, servant or job hunting; one thing that is clear from the Bible, any work that you do do, do it as it is for God Himself. Can we honestly say that we have the same joy of the Lord when we are cleaning the floors as we do when we are guiding someone to being baptised? Do we have the same joy when our boss asks us to extra work as we do when God asks for a little more time in His presence? Everything that we do, we do as it is for God, which means it is done driven by joy and love as pure acts of devotion towards God. If we all start working in the knowledge that everyone we do we are doing it for God, there is no space for grumbling, complaining, bad quality work, why? Because the perfect love of God casts out everything! There is no space for anything not God if we but let His Spirit guide us through all of our tasks. The way we do this, we let everything we do be done as an act of praise and worship to God. Can you even start to picture how the world around you will change if suddenly everything you do has the same vigor, joy and passion as the activities you enjoy doing for God? Imagine if you served food with the same joy and passion as your worship God, I am pretty certain you are going to have some very happy customers. Once we then start managing our society position in the awareness that we are doing it all for God, the characteristics of God will start filtering into the economy. Business will start running in Godly manners, with equality towards employees and core values that create joy and love. Guess what happens then? Business become more successful, why? Because the consumer enjoys interacting with businesses that bring joy. “Hey Mister, why is your business always so happy and different?”, well let me introduce you to my CEO, Jesus. Personally when I write a nutrition or training plan, I write it as if it is going to be Jesus’s personal training or nutrition plan, I make sure that I am achieving all of their needs and exceeding expectations in terms of what I provide. All thanks to God, since I started working for Him, I have never had to do any work towards promotions, advertising, discounts etc, people just come to me, my only task to represent Jesus. When people ask why is my business or quality of work different, guess what the answer will be? Thats right, Jesus.

Once we have managed to maximise the talents God has placed before us, the Bible tells us He will double what we have to manage. Which is how the multiplication of the early Church managed to change an entire empire away from the behaviours that can only come from the pits of hell themselves. If today Christian countries are walking deeper into sin and society as a whole is walking away from God and Godly behaviours then those who are followers in Jesus need to be the light in the darkness. So yes there are different callings for everyone, but note the Bible is very clear, those who had travelling ministries where single people who did not have a family to represent Jesus. For those of us who are static we have a clear role to be the light in the darkness. This means starting with what we have, our family and our work. Once we have established the first foundations of life we can start looking outwards for the multiplication, but we must first maximise our first talents. When I got given this revelation from God I stopped focusing on the revival and started focusing on the revival in my marriage. Instead of focusing for a people to bring miracles signs and wonders I started focusing on bringing Jesus to my work. Once you focus on changing the environment around you, can the light of God start to shine. If we are always striving to get up to the higher lamp stand we will neglect to shine the light where we are, which means those around us are likely to stumble in the darkness. So let us focus on being the light around us and trust that God will place us into the next lamp stand once we have multiplied the talents he first gifted to us.