Some people have a liberated perspective on life because of extraordinary circumstances they overcame. Christ's followers have a similarly liberated perspective.

Christ's resurrection provides His people with unreasonably tenacious hope. This hope is so overwhelming that no life situation is too difficult.

The hope of unending life in Christ is like knowing that, as soon as your next workday ends, you will inherit one billion dollars. How will you feel when you wake up the next day? How bad could that eight or nine hours of work possibly be? The whole day will be fantastic because of the joyful anticipation of what waits for you. But this is comparing smaller things with greater things. Money is already worthless, but our inheritance in Christ is eternally satisfying.

Christ gives His people beautiful hope. His victorious divinity is devastatingly powerful.

by Patrick Roberts. Find additional resources at www.BooksByPatrick.com and www.KoGmedia.com

The most useful answer for us churchgoing Americans is: Our stuff is nothing more than a means to God's ends. The most useless answer is to compare ourselves with other people throughout the world until we feel so bad about ourselves that we do nothing. Some might even be misguided enough to try and manufacture humility in themselves by arbitrarily selling or giving their stuff away. So it goes that money issues seem straightforward enough and yet questions involving material goods confound and dismay most churchgoing Americans.

As long as we maintain a hopeful, eternal perspective in Christ, we can confidently put material possessions in their appropriate, negligible places. They are disposable means at best. Physical things, including our own bodies, will only turn back into the dust from which they came. Even this dust will be consumed by a heavenly fire someday.

In Christ, there is an eternally wise and spiritually effective way to deal with material things.

Average Americans are hopelessly dependent on the idea of owning certain things. Both churched and un-churched folk have been known to take out a second job just to pay for the car that they need to drive to their second job.

Even apart from unreasonable excess, many single people as well as responsible parents seem to be caught in a monetary catch-22. They are told that they are rich, but that statement is neither reassuring nor helpful for making legitimate ends meet.

Therefore, a reassurance that Americans and many westerners need is that, riches or no riches, neither one guarantees virtue in God's eyes. There are virtuous rich people, and there are blasphemous poor people.

Trying really hard to be a good Christian is good, but freedom to obey Christ in every circumstance is better.

God, who created all things, is free from any material dependency. So also, because we are an extension of Christ, we can enjoy a similar freedom no matter how little-faiths may multiply and swarm all around.

If we seek Christ, then our goal has nothing to do with man-made inventions or goals. But rather, our goal is to conform ourselves to Christ's example, who lives and breathes confidence in God. We should live after the manner of Christ, who always trusts the Father, in comfort and in discomfort, in life and in death.

If Christ looks to God the Father to procure His heavenly success, then how much more should we mortals depend on God! Just as God has endorsed Christ’s ministry on earth from the beginning ‘til now, so also we, as Christ's followers, should depend on heavenly endorsement for our earthly lives.

Jesus only spoke as the Father told Him to speak, therefore Christ’s words are still more powerful than anyone else’s ever. And Jesus only acted as the Father commanded, the fruit of which is the most ground-breaking, world-redeeming life that has ever been lived. Therefore, if we surrender ourselves to Him then He might make our humble lives spiritually ground-breaking both in this world and in the world to come. And this is all to God's credit.

As we fellowship with God, His Spirit will teach us to adopt the worldview of Christ, who saw divine opportunities in raging, natural storms as well as in the whining, little tempests of men. He fed the hungry masses with physical food in order to point them back toward Himself, our Spiritual Food. He even trusted the Father to redeem the most gruesome tool of death that men could concoct and make it into a symbol of heavenly hope for His people forever.

by Patrick Roberts

This is an excerpt from To the Church of the West, Scattered Throughout the World. Find this book and similar articles at www.BooksByPatrick.com

The conviction that with God anything is possible is meant to lead to our valiant action and our humble, lifelong obedience. How often, I wonder, do people really act on this conviction, that God does not need our contribution? No one can know this truth in earnest and at the same time have a stagnant or “dead” faith. To say that we have faith in the living God and yet in no way live out this faith, is like saying “Look at that living dead man!” or “That man is full of dead life.” So also it is similarly impossible to have dead faith in Christ.

But Godliness remains elusive to those who would like to give themselves too much credit. Those who reserve even the tiniest scrap of credit for themselves will be led by pride to take their lives into their own hands.

This is a subtle perversion, but perversion nonetheless, to think that we deserve any credit at all. Any man who reserves even the slightest piece of his decaying old self will be led onward by that little piece to reserve for himself a portion of God’s spotlight, all the while claiming to do so for God.

Therefore, because we are easily deceived, Christ requires total surrender, even to the point that we are dead to our old life and to the world in general. His fiery cleansing allows nothing to remain of our former life apart from Him, all of which amounts to a pile of stinking, Godless decay.

If we who follow Christ remain living, it is only because Christ continues to live in us. Therefore, if we strive toward maturity in Christ, we won’t think to boast in the freedom of our wills or in our ability to try really hard. But, when we are all His, we will naturally boast only in Him, to whom we also delight to be enslaved.

There is unexpected power in being convinced that Christ is divinely sufficient for us. That’s what faith in Christ is. And this faith functions powerfully because He makes it powerful.

Surrendering to Christ leads to knowing God, purity, faith and every other heavenly asset that exceeds our earthbound imaginations. God's grace thoroughly consumes people to the point that they are finally able to live, act and speak for the right reasons. When we are all Christ's and not at all our own, He accomplishes all kinds of things that were impossible for us before.

In this way, let it be common sense that salvation in Christ affects our whole lives, like a tree that grows well because of the good soil from which it grows. For this reason, God designed for us to continually dwell in Christ and to remain wholeheartedly devoted to Him all day long.

A Christ-consumed person has a revolutionary effect on his or her surroundings without having to try very hard. Such is the effect of any extension of the Life Himself when he or she comes in contact with this dying, decaying world.

We should also be encouraged that obedience to Christ spills over into everyday, ordinary things. He is Lord over a regular, working-class people.

God's kingdom must apply to the regular lives of ordinary people, or else His grace is not grace. Either the kingdom of heaven applies to everyday people, or else there is no hope for anyone, because all people are everyday people.

God purposed that Godly living should apply to everyday things because He designed people to live one day at a time. He will teach us how to apply Godliness to daily concerns because He saves us for this specific purpose. This is His idea, so He’ll see out it to the end.

Christ is not distant from our everyday life. If He is Lord over our eternal wellbeing, then it is a small thing to look after our day-to-day existence.

Christ's Presence in our everyday business will affect average onlookers more powerfully than any amount of rehearsed conversation or churchy, special events. Christ as Lord over regular people’s lives will strike a chord with this world full of regular people.

Going to work, fixing the roof, paying the bills, walking the dog and spending time with the in-laws are the things that regular people think about. For us who follow Christ, He is Lord over all these things. In this way we will fellowship with Him and with each other as we carry out our collective, everyday faith.

As we continue to fall down prostrate in the Lord’s Presence, surrendering ourselves over to Him before we try to do anything, He will teach us how to get up go about our daily business. The goal of this faith-race is to no longer distract ourselves or other people, but rather to strive toward total Christ-consumption.

Therefore, our role in manifesting God to a Godless world comprises of becoming less so that He might be more in and through us. Our goal is to no longer obstruct the world’s clear view of God in Christ.

How can this be, that Christ uses invisible people to make Himself visible? Ultimately, you’ll have to ask Him yourself. He is the exclusive Purveyor of God-sized mystery.

This is a trustworthy statement, that by subjecting ourselves to God’s ways (though they seem foolish to our flesh) we will be subjecting ourselves to all the infinite possibilities of the Omnipotent Lord of All.

by Patrick Roberts

This is an excerpt from To the Church of the West, Scattered Throughout the World. Find this book and similar articles at www.BooksByPatrick.com

They suppose their minds are free to roam, but they venture only so far as their stomachs will allow. They wander not freely, but from one meal to the next.

From the dust and mire dead people stumble forth. And what more can dead people do than stumble along?

Between now and the end of their presumptuous lives lies a single great fall. And this fall is not just inevitable, it is upon them now.

Holding them apart from this devastating collision, which will reunite every fleshly man with Mother Dust, is a pitiful, boney pair of legs. One little slip will pulverize their flimsy little frames. One slip, that is, if their brief time ration doesn’t wear them out first.

Mind you, not all reunions are happy, least of all the eternal, miry end that awaits each one of these fragile wanderers.

If they went to the trouble of opening their mouths, they might say, “Give us something new, but make sure it tastes familiar to our stubborn old palates. Intrigue us with a new invention, only be sure to mix and match this new flavor with the old ingredients we deem acceptable.”

They desire the same old imitation only with different packaging. They want the same old gravel to chew except now with more zesty seasonings than ever.

That “do not disturb,” sign is posted for every herald of reality, along with an obvious “keep out” sign, so they can go about their grimy business in imaginary peace.

They may have run across imperishable Truth at some point, either by their pesky consciences or by some other means, but they have set their minds on this perishing world instead. This dust bowl makes better sense to them, and they’re not about to change something that seems to work.

Secular cavemen have their familiar fleas, their fire dances and their blunt weapons, and these things are enough for them. If Truth or any otherworldly Thing comes near them, they can only do whatever their primitive instincts know of to do, which is either run away or else try to club this new, disagreeable Thing to death. If they do succeed in killing whatever this Thing was that made them uncomfortable, then they’ll either bury it or burn it. Out of sight out of mind.

With their actions secular cavemen say “Please, don’t bother us now. Can’t you see that we’ve finally convinced ourselves that we’re comfortable?” Having lain in the mud so long, they feel at home in it. “Go away from us, Truth, You have nothing we want. Go away from us, Light, You aren’t predictable like our suns and moons, nor can we manipulate You like our beloved, little, sparking flints.”

There are others, the religious cavemen, who don’t run away from or bludgeon Truth right away. They prefer instead to make some likeness of this new Thing out of wood, stone or metal. Their consciences may hint at an otherworldly, enlivening Wealth, but they are dead-set on figuring these things out on their own. They would rather have some kind of guarantee than wait for anything. And their guarantees are wood, stone and metal.

Their Neanderthal minds are fascinated by every shiny object they concoct along with their colleagues. They encourage each other to reproduce these objects in mass number and figure out new ways of making these things more and more shiny. Religious cavemen also love to sniff at and handle and taste the things they worship.

Both secular and religious cavemen worship their respective gods of Control. Or maybe their gods are Distraction, Self-centeredness and Self-justification. In any case, they will stick to whatever makes the most sense or else whatever requires as little as possible from them. They love their clubs, their shiny objects and their fire because they suppose that they’re in control over them. Such is the caveman way.

The Godless masses would choose a permanent loss of all hearing, or even death, rather than listen to such nonsense as God in Christ or Christ crucified. Cavemen, using themselves as their point of reference, can’t help but esteem themselves enlightened. Therefore, because they are already enlightened, this Truth must be fit only for simpletons.

And there is something fundamentally disturbing to cavemen about this Christ. It’s either His direct truthfulness or it’s the unassuming way He lives for a higher Cause than Himself. It is bothersome to regular people that Christ functions by some untraceable heavenly Power who continually supports His actions and words. In any case, He is certainly offensive to every kind of caveman. The choice is clear for them in regards to the Son of God: Total rejection, and right quick. On at least this much all cavemen can agree, regardless of what kind of club they carry, or what kind of cave-dwelling they prefer. However, even after they seem to have snuffed out this Truth, their mind’s eye remains squinting and their little bodies squirm under the Light of even the faintest memory of Him.

How troublesome it is for Godless people to get accustomed to the Light when they have for so long preferred darkness! Really, darkness is much more convenient for anyone who has unshakable habits, which require covering-up.

The briefest moment of illumination makes happy shadow-dwellers yearn for their shadows again. The poor creatures long to be left alone, happy as far as they can tell, wrapped up in their familiar shadows and all their comfy dust and mire.

by Patrick Roberts

This is an excerpt from Patrick's book, To the Church of the West, Scattered Throughout the World, find this book as well as other resources at www.BooksByPatrick.com