Make a mark..

“Not for me to make my mark, but for him to make his mark on me, in me.”

 

My pastor made this statement this Sunday as he mentioned his testimony about younger days. How that he (being full of zeal) wanted to make his mark on the world, but how he realized that Chirst making his mark on him was more important.

 

Immediately I saw the scars of Jesus, in his hands, in his side, the marks of the price he paid.. and I thought it interesting that there is such a twist to that statement. As with most things with God, there is much to consider and much wisdom that takes you to deep places… good places.. world changing places.. as well as heart altering places.

 

His mark..

 

We often think that receiving it will bring greatness and arrival.. and it will… past this life and into eternity.. but in this world, if we fail to consider fully the Words of Christ on the matter.. we open the door for hell to bring confusion. That rotten serpent will begin to twist things in our prideful flesh just as he did with Eve and cause us to begin to question and doubt the justice of God.

 

When life becomes difficult, and things don’t go according to the textbook we pieced together in our own minds.. we miss the true Word of Life that Christ spoke in his book, the Bible. His mark in this life will not bring us recognition in the eyes of all those around us in this world.. it will bring us offense and hate and make us a target for ridicule and death in the minds of many.

 

There is greatness to the mark of Christ..

But if we fail to acknowledge and embrace the flipside..

We lie to ourselves and set ourselves up for hell to bring confusion and doubt into our lives and into the lives of those watching us live it.

It is THE WHOLE word of God that makes us strong when under attack.

 

In the church crowd and outside of it.. you will be hated by many just as he was hated.

He walked it alone, so that we wouldn’t have to.

He walks with us, fights for us, equips us, leads us, and lives in us.

 

If we refuse to doubt him and his word, we cannot fail to make a powerful mark,

Because we will be his reflection, and it will be his mark that we make.

That is greatness.. that’s the mark we desire to make on the world..

Jesus.

 

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.  This I command you, to love one another.

 

 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.  But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates me hates my Father also.  If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.  It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’  But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me;  and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15)