Dear Friends,

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Very often, when Christians ask themselves what the will of God is for their lives, they (we) may have in mind the verse in Ephesians 2:10, which says that we are“God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do.”

If they are young and adventurous, they might be hoping that these good works will involve some glorious calling. In days gone by it might have been a call to go and preach the gospel in a far-flung land. When the visiting missionary came to speak they’d be sitting twitching in their seats, mentally crying out “Me, Lord, send me, send me!” What a thrilling thought…

When David Livingstone heard that call, little did he know what awaited him, and the cost of that calling. He and his brother were both training to be doctors. His brother mocked David when hearing of his desire to go and serve God in the heart of the African continent. What a waste, he would be throwing away his life! Now, if you look in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the endeavours and achievements of David Livingstone take up several pages. However, his brother figures in a single paragraph. His one claim to fame is that he was the brother of David Livingstone.

On the other hand, when considering the will of God for your life, you might be more like my husband Martyn. As a teenager in his father’s church, he’d be metaphorically hiding under his chair when a visiting evangelist came, hoping God wouldn’t notice him, and call him to go and preach in some far off land where giant spiders and venomous snakes lurked under every leaf.

However gripping the tale of David Livingstone’s achievements might sound, it was far from glorious in reality. He followed a difficult, dangerous, and often lonely path, one that required daily obedience to God. He was serving others and putting aside his own comforts for their sake, even to the point of laying down his life for God’s plans and purposes. We don’t always see that from afar. But we need to remember that this is the true cost of discipleship: it is daily obedience, a daily dying to self for the sake of the one who died for us. This is true whether we find ourselves on a great stage or living our lives entirely unobserved. We are called to be faithful, obedient followers of Jesus.

Micah 6:8 speaks clearly about this, He has shown you O man, what is good. And what does God require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 

This verse has guided the lives of so many Christians over countless generations, and it should be so for our lives too. We are to act justly, to be merciful even as Christ has been merciful to us, and we are to walk humbly with our God

In Philippians 2:13 we read this: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves.

Finally, in Colossians 3 Paul addresses the Christian community of his day. He speaks to wives, husbands, children and fathers, and he also speaks to slaves. This is not because he agreed with slavery, but it was the sad reality of the time that slavery existed. However his words to Christian slaves should impact us too, if Christ is truly not just our Saviour but also our Lord.

Colossians 3:22-24 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart [whether in obscurity or in the public eye], as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving…

Forget the Encyclopaedia Britannica, if you want your name to be written in the Lamb’s book of life, this is the attitude that each one of us should have, this is the reward and the inheritance we should all desire, whatever the works God has prepared for us to do.

With love in Jesus Christ,

Sarah

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