Jesus The Better Way: He Instills A Better Motivation Series

JESUS THE BETTER WAY:

JESUS INSTILLS A BETTER MOTIVATION

HEBREWS 11:32 – 12:3

INTRO

The Bucket List

So did any of you read, a few weeks back, about the 91 year old that fulfilled one of his bucket list items?

Walter Thomas lives in Woodstock, NY and he had an unusual wish on his bucket list. He told his grand daughter, Becky Goers, that, “he always wanted to back a car through the garage door.”

So Becky, a driver’s education teacher, called in a few favors and made it happen. Grandson Andrew Thomas found a 1998 Isuzu Rodeo, and his brother Brian discovered a garage Walter could wreck.

Donning a crash helmet and with family watching, Walter climbed behind the wheel, hit the gas, and barreled backwards through the wooden door.

Family members laughed, cried, and cheered as flying wood settled around the driveway.

“That was crazy,” Walter told the paper while smiling ear to ear. “We really took the door down.” He also answered his lifelong question. The garage door was destroyed, but the frame was undamaged.

{Source” http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/91-year-old-fulfills-bucket-list-item-backing-thro/nmWHn/}

Have you ever asked yourself why you do the things you do?

What determines what is worth of your time and energy?

When you look back at the end of your life will you be able to say, “It was worth it.” Will you know that you have given your life for something that counted?

There are a lot of earthbound motivations that compete for our loyalty and diligence but, in the end, they prove to be dust and rust. There are other motivations that some might say are foolish but last long after we have passed from this life into the next.

Have you heard of Jean de Meung (c.1250 – c.1305)? Probably very very few of us have heard of him. And there’s a reason. He stayed holed up in his home in France trying to turn rocks into gold. Something that had been tried for almost 2000 years to no avail but he wanted the gold!!

Have you heard of Robert Grosseteste (c.1175–1253)? You need to. He was the Bishop of the diocese at Lincoln and the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century.

• He lectured on theology at Oxford but is also considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford.

• He is considered the first physicist and mathematician of his age.

• He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of physics, optics, astronomy and geometry that have influenced science to this day.

• He affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory; testing its consequences through controlled experiments.

• He added greatly to the development of the scientific method that Roger Bacon later expanded into "the scientific theory."

One chased his greed the other chased a dream based off of what he knew of God and God’s creation.

It seems to me that knowing the calling of God (that dream God has implanted within you) and chasing that dream with all one’s heart trumps any other pursuit.

To have a clear sense of a divine dream, of what God has created you for, and refusing to be deterred is stabilizing, satisfying, sustaining and significant.

At the same time, following God’s will for you can be heart breaking.

It will also be exhausting.

It will cost you your life … it cannot be a hobby you “do” on the side.

But in every case it will be be worth it and you will have no regrets.

Listen to the word of the Lord:

HEBREWS 11:32 - 12:3

11:32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,

11:33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions,

11:34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.

11:35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

11:36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.

11:37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—

11:38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

11:39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

11:40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.