626 Vision for Eternity - 2 Corinthians 5:9

What percentage of your life would you say is spent trying to please Jesus? Let's talk about that today. 

Hey, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast. I confess the answer to my own question is much lower than I'd like it to be. I spend most of my day, every day trying to please myself. But it's something I'm working on and I work on regularly.

Today, I want to talk about 2 Corinthians 5:9. "Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him." And that's from the New American Standard translation.

I want to be pleasing to God. That's my awake, intentional purpose. But often my reflexes and my habits after 64 years, of living in this body, is to please myself. I struggle with trying to please myself every day. Today, we're also going through this exercise in our Online Community called the Marketplace Mission Trip. And the very last activity of the Five Daily Activities is "Speak for Yourself", it's finding a way to be able to explain why you believe Jesus, and why you follow Him, but doing so using first-person pronouns. 

I want to be able to explain my motives as being initiated by Jesus. Part of that requires me to live my life, following Jesus. If I never live my life following Jesus, no one will ever ask me. And if I actually claim to follow Jesus, but I really don't live following him, then that disparity creates a lot of confusion.

And that's probably the biggest criticism of the church today by people who are not Jesus's followers. We don't look different. I want to have as my ambition, whether at home or absent to be pleasing to Him. Now, Paul is not talking about whether or not I'm in town or out of town. He's actually talking about whether, in this body or in the next life, my goal is to please, Jesus. This is like a vision for eternity. He wants to please Jesus, all day, every day today, and all day, every day for all of eternity. 

I've noticed that I grow in my passion and in my desire to please Jesus. The more that I follow Him, the more joy I experience following Him. And then I want to do that more.

I want to follow Him some more so that I can receive that joy again. It's a little self-fulfilling. And you've experienced it too. Maybe it was in a wonderful worship service or going on an overseas mission trip, or serving other people in an area where you weren't comfortable and then watching Jesus work.

When we lean into our relationship with Jesus, we experience this joy and this peace, and I want you to be able to both experience that and be able to articulate that. That's how this verse and our daily activity, on the mission trip tie together. If we can focus our lives to living and pleasing Jesus.

Then we will come up with ways to explain that God will give us the words. We'll also have friends who are asking. Our lives will look different. And that I believe is our first goal as a marketplace minister, is to live a life that looks a little different. We follow Jesus. And when he becomes our north star, we're not on the same path as everyone else.

Our job is to follow Him; take part in His plan. And his plan is to be visible to everyone in the world so they can choose to trust Him. Today, I want to encourage you. Let's follow Jesus. Let's ask him to give us an idea today, of whether or not we live trying to please him.

Like I said, my bar, of pleasing Jesus is too low. I want to make it go up. And so as I look for ways to please, Jesus, I want to give my life away in trying to serve other people. That is one way I believe he's called me to serve him, is by serving his people, and by serving other people. 

Thanks for being a marketplace minister. Ministry is just an opportunity to serve others and help them move one notch closer to Jesus. Thanks for being a minister in your workplace. I hope you're taking part in the Follower of One Marketplace Mission Trip. If you've never done that, go check it out. You can join https://community.followerofone.org and you'll get invited to the next Marketplace Mission Trip.

It's a two-week exercise where we practice living our lives, pleasing Jesus. Check it out at https://followerofone.org. And thanks very much.