Heart Tracks - Three Masters

"Just think! Though I did nothing to deserve it, and though I am the least deserving Christian there is, I was chosen for this special joy of telling the Gentiles the endless treasures available to them in Christ." Ephesians 3:8........"The source of Apostle Paul's contentment was a Person, not provision. With God by his side, Paul was satisfied." Alicia Britt Chole

I don't remember who said it, but I have written down in my prayer journal, "We're concerned about provision, protection, and position. Yet we need not be concerned for any of these if we will realize we are heirs of His Kingdom." Paul states in Romans that those who are His are co-heirs with Him of all the riches and fullness of His Kingdom. Yet how many of us live as if this is so? How many of us are mastered by an obsession over how we'll be provided for? How safe will we be? How successful can we become? Our life focus is so much upon these three "masters" that we never really experience the "endless treasures" in Christ that Paul speaks of.

There's a saying that goes something along the lines of , "We never know who we have in Him until He is all we have." Yet few of want to get to such a place. In fact we're terrified of that place. As a result we invest our life energy into making sure that we have enough, are safe enough, reach high enough. The Father becomes our facilitator in all of that. He provides, protects, and advances us. Our security lies then in what He has given, not in who He is. Our great fear then is that what we have will run out. What keeps us safe will be broken down, and that the place we have achieved in life will be taken away. Provision. Protection. Position. Three masters. Three tyrants. And many of us are living in bondage to them right now. In Exodus, the Father rebuked the people of Israel when they made a golden calf to represent to them who He was. They needed to have an image. He told them that they had exchanged their glorious God for a statue of a grass eating ox. How different is that from what we do? We worship the fruit of what He gives, not the One who gives it all. We are more concerned over losing the fruit than we are of losing the Giver of the fruit.

Paul's life was totally invested in proclaiming and inviting people into the riches, the treasure that could be realized in Christ alone. Paul meant that the treasure was Christ Himself. We have made it all about the things He gives. We have framed our modern message all around that. That's the golden calf that we have made.....and been mastered by. Come to Christ and He will provide for you, protect you, and yes, ensure your success. Then we focus our lives upon these....and miss Him....completely.

Too much of my life has been lived under the tyranny of the three masters. I want only one. The One who makes me free. The One who is the only true Treasure in this life. Christ. Jesus says in John 17:3, "And this is the way to have eternal life - to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the One You sent to earth." May our prayer be that we come to have more and more of His eternal life as we come to know Him and the Father more and more. May the three false masters fall that we may be mastered by the the three in One God alone.....and be free.

Blessings,
Pastor O