Avoid the Escape Mentality

December 3

"Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle" (Ps 144:1).

One of the best-selling American books of all time is a fiction series that focuses on the end times called Left Behind. It deals with the rapture of Christians from the earth before the final end-times crisis takes place and the anti-Christ rules.

If we are not careful we will fall into a mindset that we are simply buying time until Jesus calls us home. No matter what the end-times scripture teaches, it is clear that believers should model a behavior that is more like a soldier in battle desiring to take the land, than a person awaiting an airlift.

When God placed man on earth, He desired man to rule the earth. "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen 1:28). The intent was not dictatorship, but to express the love and care of God throughout all of creation in order to know and experience the creator in all things.

Today, we often have a cruise ship mentality in the Church of Jesus Christ instead of a battleship mentality designed to engage the enemy of our souls. Our army is often ill-equipped to know how to take the land that God has provided through His Son. This is why believers in the workplace must see their work and calling as an assignment from God to demonstrate His power in all of society in order to restore His rule upon the earth. That is the key reason Jesus died on the cross - to restore that which was lost (Lk 19:10).

Are you engaged in the battle?