GoldSample

The Simple Way

The age-old questions of humanity are: Who am I? What am I doing here? What is my purpose in life?

Much confusion, frustration and pain results when we try to solve these questions in our own strength or copy the world’s blueprint for “success”. The answers are found only in Jesus as we discover both our God-given identity and God-given potential – the gold within.

When our family first moved to live in Uganda in 2009, we were deeply challenged by the passage of scripture in James 1:27 that says:

Pure and genuine religion is the sight of God the Father is caring for the orphan and the widow in her distress and keeping oneself from being polluted by the world.

We decided we were going to very intentionally give ourselves to exploring this truth and learn more about the “pure and genuine” faith that James wrote about. How could we express that kind of faith in our daily lives?

We sought to strip away “religion” and replace it with love – simple, uncomplicated daily acts of love, both for and on behalf of Jesus. We sought to make this a huge part of our daily lifestyle of worship, learning how to declare with both our hearts and our hands who Jesus is and what He has done.

I don't claim to have all the answers to these questions and, to be honest, the more I pray about it the more questions I have. But one thing I am increasingly convinced of is this:

Surely the Gospel, surely church, surely having a relationship with Jesus, surely love should not be complicated. 

Instead it should be simple and accessible to all – characterised by LOVE.

The world is in desperate need for God’s people to stand up, be counted and pay the cost.

You only have to turn on the news to see stories from around the world of sickness, disease, natural disasters, humanitarian crises, war, political manipulation, injustice and abuse.

We must be the generation who say, “No! There is a different way…

Take up the challenge. Yield to Father God and allow Him to uncover the gold in your life. Then go and spend your life in the pursuit of uncovering that gold in others. Yes, there is a real cost to this. There is no cheap discipleship. 

But it is simple. 

You can share the love of God and be the hands and feet of Jesus daily, reaching out to touch those you encounter as you simply go. 

Anything less would be a tragic waste of your God-given potential. So, go. See what Jesus can do with the little you have, fully yielded to Him.