MASTERED

For the love of Christ compels us… – 2 Corinthians 5:14a

The Ordered Life is MASTERED LIFE – the life of a personality with a mind mastered by his Mission! The great note of Paul’s life is that he was mastered by his mission and committed to his passion. He couldn’t veer away from the calling. Whenever he talked about his calling to preach the gospel, it was “woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” (Rom.1:17). He gave himself totally and wholly to his God-ordained vision. 1 Corinthians 9:22-23 is one such exposition of Paul’s sense of unrelieved obligation: “to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.” Paul’s persuading was by no means always successful (Acts 17:32). He never allowed that to deter him (Acts 28:20-24).

The Mastered Life implies gaining mastery over personal and other impediments to accomplishment and excellence in life. It implies living with a passion in the fulfilment of divine Vision and Missions. You don’t have to be an expert in diverse fields for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you must have been mastered by the few great things that matter, and be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make an enduring difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things. For your life to count and for the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves with global temporal and eternal impact, you don’t require a high IQ or a high EQ. Your primary needs are not good looks, riches, a fine family background or education in an elite school. You just must contact a few fundamental, abiding, obvious, simple, yet majestic and glorious things, and be set on fire by them.

There are of course those who care less whether their lives make a lasting difference for something great. They just want to be excited and happy; all they need to be satisfied is for people to like them! Some are simply okay with a good job, a fine spouse, lovely kids, a nice car, a beautiful house, a few good friends, early retirement, and quick and easy death. That’s the tragedy of the temporal. Where in these is the preparation for eternity? Imagine standing before the Creator of the universe to give an account of how you lived on earth. There’ll be no car, mansion or yatch to boast about on that date with destiny! A life full of toys would have been a wasted life. The life that truly matters is one that’s poured out for matters of eternal significance; poured out for the Lord Jesus Christ, to make Him known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick; lives motivated and mastered by a heavenly vision, and spent in humble service to humanity for the glory of Jesus Christ.

The world is spending stupendous resources to persuade us to buy into and embrace the tragic dreams of what is assumed to be the “good life” – a life that wallows in lavish splendour and wastes away in sinful pleasure. God created us to live with an eternal passion: to joyfully display His supreme excellence in all spheres of life. A life without this passion is disordered and wasted. God calls us to pray, think, dream, plan, and work not just to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of our existence. Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their times on trivial diversions, living for luxury and vanities. Beloved, decide not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. Make up your mind to live and die making the glory of God your singular passion: “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). That is the maximised life, the mastered life, the ordered life!