21. Live As Christ Would Live
21
LIVE AS CHRIST WOULD LIVE
In my first book, Revolution in World Missions, I related my American experiences from 1974 to 1980.
In 1976, during the darkest times of my soul, I had to learn the reality of detachment and simplicity. Satan had me so pressured with ministry burdens and support problems at one point that I almost gave up the ministry.
One time, the pressure became so great I considered making our lives more bearable by going into real estate, so that we would have enough money to pay bills and ministry expenses and at the same time keep up our present lifestyle. My wife saw what was happening, and she begged me to continue to trust the Lord and live with nothing, rather than to alter God’s calling on my life.
I’m so glad I prayed through this hard time, and God gave us liberty and freedom to learn to seek His kingdom first and to trust Him to meet our needs. We learned to alter our lifestyle rather than compromise His call.
I’m not sharing this story of our family to lay down rules for you. God assigns each of us to a different place in the harvest field, and thus we must answer to the Holy Spirit in our own way as to how we handle finances and material things. This is simply how it happened at our house.
You and your family will have to find your own road to detachment and simplicity. It may be quite different from ours, and that’s fine. I hope only that our story will illustrate basic principles and give you some direction for your journey into this area of spiritual reality.
Brainwashed by Demons
Our society seems to be pursuing an increasingly materialistic lifestyle, and we as believers are not immune to it. We act out guidelines we receive from Christian and worldly advertisers alike. We aim to live the “good life,” as advertised on television and billboards and in the press.
We are brainwashed by the demons that drive today’s media, and we have it all—or we are on our way to having it all! We have closets full of suits, ties, shirts, jeans, dresses, blouses and shoes for every season. We own cars, a savings account and insurance policies. We have a house and a mortgage to go with it and, of course, credit card debt. The television is always on, and our kids are glued to the Internet. We can’t live without ice cream in our freezer, and we drink sodas between meals. We eat cakes and cookies and junk food. We wash with perfumed soaps and have a medicine chest full of cosmetics, medicines and dietary supplements.
I Was Miserable Inside
My family and I were not unaffected by the materialistic lifestyle around us, and we, too, were caught up in this same spirit. On the surface, everything was fine. I was preaching, studying the Word for hours daily and shepherding a flock of 200 souls. Our church was growing. The congregation was being fed the Word of God. People were being saved, but I was miserable inside.
My soul was drying up. I was tormented by the knowledge I carried inside my heart and head. Others had not seen what I had seen in Asia, and I could not forget the people I had left behind. I was haunted by memories of millions of lost souls in North India and the suffering, forgotten little band of national missionaries I knew was still trying to reach them for God.
So for two years, my heart had hardened. I had not shed a tear for them. In fact, I could not shed a tear for anyone or anything. Then, as I prayed and evaluated my life in the light of eternity, it all changed. I let go of one materialistic thing after another—to surrender my ambitions and plans for future ministry in the safety and security of America.
During two weeks of prayer, I made a deliberate decision to put it all on the altar and let God once again have total control of my life. Suddenly, a dam of tears broke within, and I could once more weep and feel the love of Christ for lost souls.
My lifestyle was up for grabs. Everything and every action were tested against the literal teaching of Scripture. I decided that I would lay up no treasure for myself on this earth. I made a definite choice to put the kingdom of God first and trust Him to “add all these things unto me.”
Our lifestyle became simpler. My new car was the first thing to go. Insurance policies, savings accounts, credit cards, most of my clothes—everything that could be was sold off so the money could be sent to my needy brethren serving in Asia.
But we never missed a thing. It was such a joy to move in the flow of the Holy Spirit again. Suddenly we were free. We had wings like eagles to soar above our bondage to these material playthings. In one stroke, we as a family were again having a significant impact on a lost and dying world. We knew that we were exercising the mind of Christ about these things, and we began trusting our Father to provide for our needs.
A Changed Lifestyle
In fact, finding new ways to save money for missions became a game at our house. I started washing with generic soap instead of fancy brand names. Magazine subscriptions and wasted hours before the television disappeared from our lives as did the time I once spent matching the color combinations of my wardrobe.
I had no regrets. We were no longer seeking to improve our lifestyle, worrying about investment portfolios, saving for a rainy day—and all the other nonsense that cripples and destroys the lives of so many Christians in this country.
May I challenge you, dear reader, to go prayerfully through your house and your life with Jesus at your side. Take along a yellow pad and make a list. Ask Him to speak to you about your garage, basement and overflowing clothes. I challenge you to pledge your allegiance to Him in such a way that you’ll surrender anything He asks.
May I dare you also to reverse your prayer-style when it comes to the way you spend your income?
How many Christians pray before they go into the supermarket? How many pray before they go to the mall or shopping center? Before they buy a book or a magazine or go to a movie? Before they go to a restaurant where the cost of the check would sponsor a national missionary for a month? How about you?
Yet the minute they are challenged to support the real work of God, things become very spiritual. Now they have to pray about sponsoring a national missionary, pray about responding to appeal letters for missions, pray about contributing to the offering!
I’m not saying we should be careless stewards in how we support missions, but I am saying that most of us apply a double standard that is not based on agape, sharing love. If the spending of our income is for our things and our pleasure, then the signal is “buy—buy—buy!”
But too often, when lost souls are at stake, we let greed and hoarding call the plays. Then we have to think about it and consider it. And we don’t do this only in our personal lives. The same kind of thinking prevails when we make corporate decisions at church.
Recently I heard about a church that purchased a $100,000 chandelier! Another church is making a $52,000 weekly mortgage payment! When it comes to approving a ski trip for the youth group or new carpet for the sanctuary, the item passes through the budget committee without comment. But if it is Bibles for Myanmar or supporting a national missionary, then there needs to be debate. This is the opposite of how we should be thinking.
How Jesus Handled Money
Jesus had much to teach about money—how we use it and give it. He also left us a good example of how to handle funds. It is found in John’s account of the Last Supper. There the apostle makes a little aside that gives us vast insight into the priorities Jesus used for dispersing funds during His earthly ministry.
Judas, the treasurer, had finished his dialogue with Jesus and was about to leave the table to betray Him. The Lord makes a simple remark that is misunderstood by the other disciples. He says to Judas, “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).
Now how did the others interpret that remark? They had been with Jesus for three-and-a-half years. They knew the job description of Judas—and they had carefully observed how Jesus spent money. So they thought Judas was going to go out and do what he always did. They figured the Lord was sending him out either to buy needed things or give aid to the poor. That was the way Jesus used money, to purchase immediate necessities and to help the poor. What an amazing insight into the mind of Christ and one that fits well into all the other teachings of our Lord about the proper use of earthly things.
Everything about Jesus and the apostles reinforces this strong impression. They were frugal men who had learned to master money and use it as a servant of the kingdom rather than as an end in itself.
Our problem today is that we believe all the money that comes to us belongs to us to spend as we please. We have the crazy idea that if God gives us a $100,000 annual income, He wants us to live a $100,000 lifestyle for ourselves.
The apostles knew better. They lived a lifestyle that matched their responsibility to a lost and dying world. It showed in the kind of churches they planted. The New Testament Christians were living examples of Christ’s control over earthly goods.
The most famous example is the Jerusalem church where
all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved (Acts 2:44–47).
The Principle Applied
Here we see the principle of New Testament sharing applied to the everyday lives of the early Christians. Again in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, we find a long passage on stewardship principles that repeats the sharing concept:
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich. ... For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack (2 Corinthians 8:9, 13–15).
According to shocking statistics from the World Evangelization Research Center, out of every $10,000 of Christian income, $9,990 is spent on ourselves, $9 is spent to support missions in other evangelized lands, and $1 goes to bring the love of Christ to the 2 billion unreached people of the world.[1] Can you imagine what would happen if we were to grasp the principle of sharing and apply it to the needs of the Gospel around the world today? Within a few short years, national missionaries would have preached the Gospel in every lost village of the Third World!
Could it be that the worship of money and materialism is at this moment keeping the world in the dark about the Good News of salvation?
Here’s my challenge to you: Live on less if that’s what it takes—but determine right here and now that you will live as Christ would in your financial affairs.
I’m convinced that, if we would adapt the kind of radical, sharing lifestyle of the New Testament, we would turn our world upside down for Christ. If we would live according to the economic laws of the kingdom, we would easily be able to send out new missionaries by the hundreds of thousands. In our lifetimes, we would be able to provide the Word of God to every human being on this planet.
And, of course, this powerful economic witness would be felt here at home as well as overseas. As we become detached from our worship of earthly things, we would learn to live more relaxed and contented lives. This freedom from covetousness and greed would allow us to escape the frenzied “earn, spend and consume” syndrome that drives our culture. This is the merry-go-round that Satan now uses to hold our families, churches and society in economic bondage. But this bondage can be broken.