“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” (Mark 8:35 NLT, second edition)
How do you know if you are living for your dream or God’s dream?
You may think you were created to get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed, to make a little money, retire, and die. Really? You think that’s all God put you here for?
If your dream is truly from God, it will somehow be connected to his Church and his plan for the world. Why would God give you a self-centered dream, unconnected to what he wants to do in the world? He wants to use you for his dream. He wants to use you for his plan.
And what is God’s big, overarching plan? God is building a family, and he’s collecting family members from every nation, every tribe, every language, and every people group. When everybody’s in the family that he knows will be in the family, it’s over. We’re going into phase two, which is eternity. That’s God’s big plan.
Right before Jesus went back to Heaven after the Resurrection, he gave the disciples a great vision, a great dream. It’s called the Great Commission: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20 NLT, second edition).
And that’s the memo.
By Rick Warren
