The Common Place

A little encouragement for all today. (I typed this out dictation style:-)

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an excerpt from: Victory Though Abiding (disc 1) - by Michael Wells

He overcame everything that's common. Now listen to this passage, and what He said "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much, and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much". You know there are very few people that have ever overcome the world of the common place? They don't have victory over the world of the common and they've yet to discover that there's any glory at all in the common, in the simple, and in the every day tasks in which the majority of believers live.

They waste time, in my opinion, looking forward to the great Christian "someday" when they enter into productivity. When they get to have that ministry that they wanted, when all the opportunities are there and they're not doing this boring thing that they are confined to day after day. And a scary thing about wasting the moment looking for the future is that moments can eventually turn into a lifetime. And there's many people that have wasted their lifetime looking for the uncommon instead of finding Christ in the midst of the things that are common.

Now look at Jesus, and this is the amazing thing to me about Him. He allowed the common occurrences of life to make Him uncommon, and as we share in Him, the same thing happens to us. He grew up in a small village and it was a village that was despised. Can anything good come out of there? With a bunch of dull, narrow minded, shallow people. Every day getting up in the morning, walking past some orphans with his widowed mother and going out to a carpenters bench, probably the size of this table. Day after day after day. You know I don't think it would be hard not to be able to see past that. Would it?

How many times do we look at the jobs that we have and we can't see past that. It's just getting up and it's the same old, dull, mundane thing and we can't see anything at all past it. And the incredible thing to me is that Jesus possessed exactly what the world needed and had to have, and He got up every morning and walked past those kids and that widow to that little bench and began working. And He had exactly what the world needed!

He was content to live 90% of His life in the common place and 10% being uncommon. But believe me it was the 90% that made the 10% uncommon. It was as He found God in those things that He became uncommon. Victory in Christ is being a happy man in the common things of life that few ever ever share in, and do you know I believe that it's one of the most important victories that all of us in this room need to find.

That we're victorious and happy in the small and insignificant things. Jesus had one foot in the hard realities of life and He had one foot in the Kingdom and He was never torn between them. Not like us. He didn't make a separation between what was Godly work and ungodly work. And in Jesus, as He's our focus, those two worlds become one world and you won't make that distinction any longer, nor will you be torn between those two worlds. You won't separate the two...

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I hope you have a blessed day in Him, and see God's glory in the common place of your everyday life.