This last Sunday we went up to Kabete and I spoke in a small Harvester’s Church there.  It is always a great experience to get out of the city and to sit down with people who are not so affected by the “haraka haraka” (rush rush) of Nairobi.

I spoke on Phillipians 2.  There are some really biting passages in there and I have written about a bunch of them here before.

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

Nothing.  Do you have any idea how hard that is?  Think through your day.  I would be willing to bet that 99% of every choice you made was out of self interest.  That is how every one of my days goes.  That is how we are wired.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus… taking the form of a bondservant.

Jesus is our example.  Bondservant can be translated as slave.  You will never be as high as He was, you will never go as low as He did.

Paul, Peter, James and Jude all describe themselves as bondservants of God.  Peter gives an exhortation to everyone, not just slaves.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.

1 Peter 2:15-16

And that gets to where I was thinking.  No one wants to hear it, but we are destined to be slaves.  Either to our sinful flesh, or to God.  We were made to have a Master, and if you do not give Him His place in your life, you put something else there.

That bondage to sin that we live in is a very interesting one.  You see, selfishness, rebellion against God has one aim.  It is to please self.  However, it does it in the most immature way.  When we serve the flesh, we serve the “now me.”  We are not doing what is good for our selves, but what is destructive.  We destroy the “future me” in order to feed the “now me.”  I wrote some of this back in the “Hard work isn’t easy” post.  But I wanted to go deeper.  I think every sin, every choice outside God’s will, is short sighted.  It does not fully take into account the big picture.  Sin is the great destroyer, of course it ultimately leads to the destruction of our soul.

God loves us.  He is the greatest master, because He has our best interest in mind.  His will for us is the best way, taking into account the big picture, that only He can see.

We have to teach children to mature in making decisions that affect the future.  We started giving Petr and Andrej and allowance, and guess what they did the first week they got their 50 shillings?  They spent it all on candy and gum.  I want them to learn to save their money, to get things that will mean more to them, things that have more value, and more longevitiy.  I want them to grow up.

God wants us, as His children, to grow up as well.  He wants us to learn to trust Him, to look further down the road and see that whatever He has for us, is better in the long run.  Can we do it?  Can we grow up?  Can we make decisions that are not motivated by pleasing the “now me” and get to looking out for His will, and for others above ourselves?