What drives your life?

 Welcome, dear friends! Grace and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied unto you! We are still continuing our talk on strategic living. We have said that strategic living demands that we understand the essence of life itself. Such understanding helps us to live a purposeful, strategic and right life before God. Today I would like to talk about “What drives your life?” There are many things that drive people’s life, motivate them and influence their system of values. Many believers are driven by wrong motives today. In order to live strategically you definitely have to ask yourself these questions: “Why do I do what I do?”, “What are my secret motives?”, “What values influence my life?”, “What affects my decisions and my choice?”, “What is driving me in the spending of my money and time?”, “What drives my life?” Let us go through some list of few wrong things and motives that drive people’s life nowadays. You have to get rid of those things in order to live your life the right way. If you want to make a real impact on this world, want to be used by God, want to fulfil your calling in God, then you have to get rid of all kind of wrong values and wrong motivations. Material success or materialism is one of the first wrong things that drive the life of many people today. Materialism prompts people to obtain more and more, better and better things. Such desire is not evil by itself, so God supports it. He doesn’t oppose our desire to possess the best things. However, the motives that drive you to obtain more and better stuff are more important. Being driven by wrong motives materialism becomes an idol that destroys people’s lives today. Being driven be materialistic motivation, people are having the attitude of only obtaining things instead of sharing. Their philosophy is what can I get from life instead of what can I add to life. The value and the impact of your life are measured by what you can share, not by what you can receive or take from life. For example, as a church member, it is what you can contribute to the development and the building up of your church that should be more important to you than focusing on how much you can get from this church. Your impact and influence will depend on your ability to give and not your ability to receive. It is those who share much that are truly rich and blessed, not those who receive only. We need a correct understanding of the word “success”. According to materialism success is something great in size and quantity, while according to God success is a totally different thing. One who can make others rich is truly a successful person even if he has not accumulated much material things. When I was doing my studies in the city of Minsk I had a friend (today he is a pastor in Germany), who loved to obtain things. He purchased a lot of good stuff, later he blessed other people with many of those things. Two years before we started a new church in Minsk, he bought music instruments – drums, loudspeakers, etc. For two years those instruments were stored in his house before he handed them over to the church as a gift. He was buying many good things, but not just for himself,- he bought them with the consideration of blessing other people. Many people driven by materialism even use their ministry to God only as a tool to make money for themselves. Ministry for them is an opportunity to make money on God. Nevertheless, a desire to share, not the desire to receive should be your true motivation to serve God. 

«He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.”» (Luke 12:15).

 The person Jesus addressed the above statement to was a man who came to Jesus trying to use His influence to resolve a question related to inheritance. Jesus immediately recognised the root of the problem in the hearts of those people – materialism, the desire to get more and more. Therefore, Jesus warned them to be careful, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses. Examine your heart! Please check what are the motives driving your life today! Materialism is living your life solely for yourself. Those who are driven by materialism desire to appear important and successful in the eyes of the other people. One day, when I was a pastor in Minsk, another pastor approached me with the question: “Do you have a car?” My reply to him was I don’t have a car. “What about God’s blessings in your life?” he asked me then. I told him that God had blessed me. “If you say God has blessed you, why did He not give you a car then?” he said. That was the way he was thinking that time. Thank God, today that man has a different way of thinking. Thank God for teaching and transforming us daily through His word. According to the way that pastor was thinking, if God blesses you and if you think you are successful in life, then you must have things such as a car and not just ordinary one, but a posh one. However, I had a different mindset. God has nothing against granting his servant a car, but it doesn’t indicate how successful that servant is. I have never measured my success by the amount nor by the value of my possessions. Things do not express how much blessed I am. I am blessed because I am a child of God and I am completed in Christ who is the Head over all principalities and powers. Serve God with a pure heart, not expecting anything in return. Share your talents with others, then God will definitely bless you! God bless you abundantly!Rufus Ajiboye, pastor