Be Great Before It’s Too Late

Though it may surprise some, being great in the eyes of God has nothing to do with who your family is.  It isn’t gaged by what your paycheck stub reads, or whether or not you had a YouTube video go viral. It is not determined by the amount of Instagram followers you have, and it is certainly not something you can just happen upon. It isn’t cheap, and often doesn’t come without a whole lot of effort.

Do you ever find yourself wrestling over big life-altering decisions? “Is this God’s will for my life? Is it not?” desperate to not miss out on the greatness of His plans for your life?  Well, friend, God is way more concerned with your heart location than your physical location. Opportunities are great, but they are not what make you great.

Who are you in the secret place?

Luke 6 talks about a tree being measured by its fruit. You can tell whether a person (the tree) is good or bad by the fruit he or she bears. We often mislabel this said fruit as a higher income, a certain type of car, or the people we surround ourselves with. Even those of us in ministry can think that we are racking up fruit when we see a harvest of souls. And by all means, this is something to celebrate! But it is not our fruit.

Galatians 5: 22-23 (ESV) is clear about what biblical fruit is:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

We must be kind. We must be loving, joyful, patient and good. Known for faithfulness and self-control. THOSE are the fruits that make up a great person.

Do you treat people with fairness and dignity? When slighted, do you respond with self-control and gentleness? Does love motivate you? Answer “yes” to those questions, and you are on your way to becoming truly great.

 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you (Romans 12:1-2 MSG).

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