When God Wants To Send You, Will You Go?
Our Mission
To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
Galatians 5.17,21 describes, the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want….and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Can you feel the conflict inside? The conflict between the flesh and the Spirit? The conflict between what we want and what God wants? We are dead to the Spirit unless we nurture the Spirit within us. How do we do that?
The Word of God is the food of the Spirit that feeds our soul and provides Him His means for teaching, correcting, reproving and rebuking us so that we grow into the full image of Jesus, the Living Word of God. Unless we pursue the Spirit of God through the Word of God the Spirit of God will hardly be at work within us, winning the conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil inside us and outside of us.
Likewise, the Word of God is not meant just to be known, it’s meant to be applied. The Spirit of God within the heart of man is strengthened by doing the work of God. Like exercise, obedience to God is what makes us strong, fit and useful in the work of seeing God’s kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven. The Spirit of God is in the heart of people for accomplishing the will of God on earth as commanded in the Word of God.
When we do whatever we want, most of which is not in sync with the will of God, we will find ourselves in conflict with men and God. When we pursue pleasure, power and profit we are too busy building our own kingdoms to build the kingdom of God. In the pursuit of building our own kingdoms we have conflicts with those who oppose our goals, who keep us from the utopia we think we should have.
When we live in the Spirit our goal is the kingdom of God upon earth as it is in heaven. We focus on building His kingdom which causes us to love men, to serve people and to sacrifice for others so that they can see, hear and believe that God is and that God has come in Jesus the Savior of the world. The gospel will cause conflict but it will cause spiritual conflict within the person who is under conviction by the Spirit.
The servant of God who lives by the Spirit of God will find His own life at peace with God and men for like God, he does not seek to be served but to serve in order to ransom men for Christ. If we feel no conflict between our own kingdom and the kingdom of God then we should measure our fruit to see which kingdom we are currently building, if not God’s we risk losing His kingdom altogether.
Our Opportunities
- Don’t let the Coronavirus keep you from giving. Help us win and disciple business men through your donations at: https://give.idonate.com/cbmc-inc/lansing
- Step one to becoming an effective ambassador for Christ in the marketplace is to pray for unsaved men by name. The easiest place to gather for prayer is at your place of business. CBMC helps Christian men form prayer teams. Check out our program here then email Mike for helping getting one started at your company.
CBMC Central Michigan 4407 W. St. Joe Hwy. Lansing 48917 / 517 481 5996 www.lansing.cbmc.com
MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
October 5, 2020
When God Wants To Send You, Will You Go?
by Robert J. Tamasy
Some weeks ago, my friend Sergio Fortes wrote about “the comfort zone,” where we feel, obviously, comfortable. It’s familiar, predictable, and usually does not require more effort than we are willing to give. So how do you respond when asked to venture outside your comfort zone? Do you resist? Dig in your heels and refuse? Or simply respond, “No, I can’t”? What about when you sense God directing you on an unfamiliar course, asking you to do something you have never tried before, maybe even something you feel totally unqualified to do?
I think of numerous biblical accounts when people were asked to take such steps: Noah, asked to build an ark with a global flood approaching; Abraham, told to leave his friendly confines in Haran for a land he had never heard of; Moses, selected to lead the Israelites out of Egypt after more than 400 years of being enslaved; Isaiah, responding, “Here I am! Send me!” when God was looking for a prophet to take His message; and each of Jesus’ disciples, who left their livelihoods to follow Him.
We might never have our life stories featured in a book, but if we are true followers of Jesus Christ, there will be times when God calls us out of our comfort zones to serve Him in another place, in another way. In my own life, I can recall numerous times when that happened. Let me cite just two:
After 10 years as a community newspaper editor, God opened a door for me to become director of publications for CBMC. I had never written a magazine article, or a book, but both were in my job description – exciting and daunting. But even before making that major career shift, the Lord wanted me to do something that for me was quite frightening – to speak to a crowd of more than 400 people.
Being what I call an “extroverted introvert,” I was comfortable speaking to people individually or in small groups, but speaking to hundreds at one time? Yet this is exactly what God was directing me to do, through my pastor in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. He had suggested I briefly speak to our congregation one Sunday morning to tell what I would be doing, and to solicit their prayers.
My initial reaction was, “I can’t do that!” But I agreed to pray about it, and eventually felt impressed this was what I should do. That Sunday morning I was, as expected, very nervous waiting for my turn to speak, but when I stood behind the podium and saw many faces staring back at me, I felt what Philippians 4:7 calls “the peace that passes all understanding.” My short talk went surprisingly well. That step of obedience proved to be a stepping stone for many opportunities to speak at CBMC events in a variety of settings. Which leads to the second example I want to mention:
In 1999, I was on staff with CBMC International, and Tim Philpot, then its President, said we needed to reconnect with the ministry in Brazil – and I was the one to do it. “What?” I knew nothing about Brazil, could not speak Portuguese, and was no expert in “ministry development.” But drawing from past experience, I trusted God knew what He was doing in sending me there.
The trip turned out to be extremely fruitful, and to this day I maintain friendships that were formed more than 20 years ago in Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Vitoria. Out of that ministry journey came an unexpected result: An enthusiastic group of Brazilians who to this day translate “Monday Manna” into 5-6 other languages, then send each edition literally around the world. This and other instances taught an important lesson: When we step out in obedient faith, God will always do more than we could ever imagine.
© 2020. Robert J. Tamasy has written Marketplace Ambassadors: CBMC’s Continuing Legacy of Evangelism and Discipleship; Business at Its Best: Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs for Today’s Workplace; and The Heart of Mentoring, coauthored with David A. Stoddard. Bob’s biweekly blog is: www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com.
CBMC Central Michigan 4407 W. St. Joe Hwy. Lansing 48917 / 517 481 5996 lansing.cbmc.com
MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
October 5, 2020
Reflection/Discussion Questions
- How would you describe your own “comfort zone”?
- Have you ever had a time when you felt God directing you to do something that was far outside your comfort zone, perhaps even something you felt unqualified to do? How did you respond?
- Why do you think that taking a step of faith at such times is so difficult? What is the role of prayer when the Lord calls you to do something and you think, “I can’t do that!”?
- Can you think of a time when you – or someone you know – did take that step of obedience and the outcome proved to be “exceeding abundantly beyond anything you can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20)? Describe the impact it had on you – and others.
NOTE: If you have a Bible and would like to read more, consider the following passages: Psalm 37:4-5; Proverbs 3:5-6, 16:1,3, 19:21; Isaiah 6:1-8; Matthew 28:19-20
CBMC Central Michigan 4407 W. St. Joe Hwy. Lansing 48917 / 517 481 5996 lansing.cbmc.com
Our Mission
To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
Galatians 5.17,21 describes, the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want….and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Can you feel the conflict inside? The conflict between the flesh and the Spirit? The conflict between what we want and what God wants? We are dead to the Spirit unless we nurture the Spirit within us. How do we do that?
The Word of God is the food of the Spirit that feeds our soul and provides Him His means for teaching, correcting, reproving and rebuking us so that we grow into the full image of Jesus, the Living Word of God. Unless we pursue the Spirit of God through the Word of God the Spirit of God will hardly be at work within us, winning the conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil inside us and outside of us.
Likewise, the Word of God is not meant just to be known, it’s meant to be applied. The Spirit of God within the heart of man is strengthened by doing the work of God. Like exercise, obedience to God is what makes us strong, fit and useful in the work of seeing God’s kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven. The Spirit of God is in the heart of people for accomplishing the will of God on earth as commanded in the Word of God.
When we do whatever we want, most of which is not in sync with the will of God, we will find ourselves in conflict with men and God. When we pursue pleasure, power and profit we are too busy building our own kingdoms to build the kingdom of God. In the pursuit of building our own kingdoms we have conflicts with those who oppose our goals, who keep us from the utopia we think we should have.
When we live in the Spirit our goal is the kingdom of God upon earth as it is in heaven. We focus on building His kingdom which causes us to love men, to serve people and to sacrifice for others so that they can see, hear and believe that God is and that God has come in Jesus the Savior of the world. The gospel will cause conflict but it will cause spiritual conflict within the person who is under conviction by the Spirit.
The servant of God who lives by the Spirit of God will find His own life at peace with God and men for like God, he does not seek to be served but to serve in order to ransom men for Christ. If we feel no conflict between our own kingdom and the kingdom of God then we should measure our fruit to see which kingdom we are currently building, if not God’s we risk losing His kingdom altogether.
Our Opportunities
- Don’t let the Coronavirus keep you from giving. Help us win and disciple business men through your donations at: https://give.idonate.com/cbmc-inc/lansing
- Step one to becoming an effective ambassador for Christ in the marketplace is to pray for unsaved men by name. The easiest place to gather for prayer is at your place of business. CBMC helps Christian men form prayer teams. Check out our program here then email Mike for helping getting one started at your company.
CBMC Central Michigan 4407 W. St. Joe Hwy. Lansing 48917 / 517 481 5996 www.lansing.cbmc.com