A Greater Story with Sam Collier: Our Place In God's PlanSample

Day Seven

A Love Story

Scripture: Romans 12:1–2; Philippians 1:6

I’ve noticed over the years that whenever I talk with people about pursuing God’s greater story for their lives, they want that story while at the same time not wanting to do what it will take to get it. They want to choose it, but they don’t want what comes with that choice.

And yet, as we’ve just discovered, that story doesn’t get told in or through our lives unless and until we choose it. It is a love story, written by God, and love is always a choice. But to choose God’s love is to forsake all other loves; in other words, sacrifice is required. Most people want nothing to do with sacrifice, with the choice to willingly lay down our lives. Even so, the greatest stories are told on the other side of sacrificial living, on the other side of selfless regard. 

Lecrae had to sacrifice familial love to embrace God’s greater story for his life. Billy Graham had to sacrifice personal safety to embrace God’s greater story in his life. Andy Stanley had to sacrifice relational harmony to embrace God’s greater story in his life. Martin Luther King Jr. was asked to make the ultimate sacrifice in giving up his very life for the cause, but just look at what God has done through that one man’s life. A greater story, indeed. 

Before the creation of the earth, God wrote a part for you to play in the story of redemption he’s telling day by day. The question that remains is, will you play the part that’s yours alone to play? After all, the greatest decision you could ever make in life is to become who you already are. 

What might you be asked to forsake for the purpose of playing the role God is asking you to play?