What does it look like to live a life worthy of the gospel? Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. With Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast. This is actually part two of a study I'm doing on Philippians 1 27 that will probably go into verse 28 as well. Today. I'm reading the passage from the New American Standard Bible.

"Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way, alarmed by your opponents- which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God."

That's Philippians 1 27 and 28 from the 1995 New American Standard. Yesterday we talked about the idea that we need to work towards living a life worthy of the gospel or conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

And we talked a little bit about how that's the core objective that we have as believers in Jesus, but what does conducting yourself that way look like what's the result? Well, the result, from this passage contains three components, standing firm in one spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel with one mind and not alarmed by our opponents. I'll go into each of those.

The first one today, standing firm in one spirit.

I think it's an interesting challenge that we have when we think about the principles of the gospel and the idea of standing firm in one spirit. Does this mean that we all do the same thing? No. I think first of all, that standing firm in one spirit means that we are taking our direction from God. It doesn't mean that we will all do the same things or worship the same way.

It's not like Paul is calling us all to disassemble all the different denominations and all do everything the same. In fact, I believe that life following Jesus is probably the greatest team sport there ever is because God is the one conducting this orchestra. He knows who's supposed to be playing what notes when, and we each get to take part in a way that we are gifted and designed for. God picked our time. He picked our place. He picked our abilities. He's even involved in our experiences and the way that we process them. And as a result, each of us carry out life following God a little differently. We're each unique.

Standing firm in one spirit means doing what we know we need to do, following the Holy Spirit, asking God to direct us in our lives. How we serve our coworkers, how we do our jobs, how we live our lives is unique to each of us.

There are certain things that we need to avoid or that we need to do. For instance, we need to be honest people because we trust God. We're told not to lie.

All the basics, the 10 commandments and those types of things we know to do those.

Standing firm in one spirit means that we remain focused on the person that we're taking direction from, which is God. We want to follow God with our whole heart and with our whole lives. And that's our goal. Our job is not to do the same thing as everyone else. Our job is to listen to the Holy Spirit and do what he says.

Today. I am grateful that you are a Christ follower. I'm grateful that you follow Jesus. Your ministry to our world matters. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for standing firm in one spirit. Let's make our goal today to listen to God and do what he says. Ask him, "Jesus, what would you have me do in the lives of the people that I interact with today? As you direct me, help me act, help me do what you call me to do."

We have plenty to do right there and working on ourselves and doing what Jesus would have us do. Let's abide in him and listen to him today. Thanks again for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for sharing this podcast. Share this podcast with one friend.

I'm grateful for you listening. Thanks very much.

 

In this week’s episode, Mike speaks with Dale Kreienkamp an author, speaker, consultant and CEO of Thriving Through Transitions. Mike and Dale discuss Dale’s journey as a Christian in the workplace, how to authentically live out your faith and Dale’s new book “How Long, O Lord, How Long?” a devotional for Christians navigating unemployment.

Episode Breakdown

• 1:38 - How Thriving Through Transitions Started
• 10:01 - How To Be An Authentic Believer At Work
• 14:05 - The Fear Of Not Being Relevant
• 18:45 - How Long, O Lord, How Long? Devotional

How Thriving Through Transitions Started

Thriving Through Transitions is the result of Dale’s own journey -  navigating sudden and unexpected unemployment. Describing his journey Dale says, “when I came out of a second job loss I had two thoughts on my mind. One, I need to give back to those going through this experience. Two, I want to find organizations that are in the midst of a transition that I can help them with employee issues they don’t even know they have.”

How To Be An Authentic Believer At Work 

Dale says, “who I was and how I behaved brought people to me. I think when people know that you’re a Christian, people will open the door for you to walk through it but you have to do something. And that’s why how we carry ourselves, how we treat other people and how we set our space up is one of the ways we can do that.” As Christians it’s important that we live our faith, not just talk about our faith.

How Long, O Lord, How Long? Devotional

We all go through transitions in our life and our business. Dale’s latest devotional “How Long, O Lord, How Long?” address this issue through a Christian perspective. The book supports individuals experiencing a period of unemployment and encourages those who love them along the way to something new. The book contains 80 devotions, each with scriptures to provide help, healing, and hope during the journey through unemployment.

Connect with Dale:

• Thriving Through Transitions
• On Linkedin 
• Dale’s Devotional

Connect With Follower Of One

Join us over in our Online Community, get social with us; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Listen to our podcast on your way to work and subscribe using your favorite podcast app!

What does it mean to live worthy of the gospel? I'm confident I've asked that question before, because that's so key to us here at Follower of One. Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. founder of Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on our podcast. In my quiet time today, I read Philippians 1:27 and today I'd like to read that from the Christian Standard Bible. "Just one thing, as citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel." Again, that's Philippians 1:27 in the Christian Standard Bible.

This passage says a lot of things, but the key that I want to focus on today is this phrase, "live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ." What does it mean to live life for the, of the gospel? For so many years we've been told, and the message has been that if we believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, we will be saved. This is in scripture.

This is a key principle of what we teach as followers of Jesus, what the church has taught and everything else. It's very important that we believe in Jesus, but it's also very important how we act. There's no way you can conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel, which is what the New American Standard says, or live a life worthy of the gospel without acting.

We can't simply believe. Our actions are what show other people that we follow. Jesus, our beliefs don't help anyone else see Jesus. Only our actions do. When we live a life worthy of the gospel, we become visible to the world and we come up with five daily activities that we talk about and Follower of One that are designed to help us live that life in our workplace.

If you search the internet today, you'll see that Christians as a group, aren't really all that different from the rest of the world. I think part of this is because of the way Christians are described. Many people speak like they're Christians and act like they're Christians. And maybe even think they're Christians because they believe in Jesus, but they never do anything. They never follow him. Erwin McManus one time said how bad it is that so many of us claim to follow Jesus without ever actually following Jesus.

We want to be people who follow Jesus, and that means that our actions must be different. Those statistics that you'll find on the internet say that at the same rates, as most of the rest of the world, People who claim to be Christians participate in sex outside of marriage, or they take part in other vices that you will see. We lie and cheat and steal and show up late and speed and do a bunch of other things because we can, we know that we're free. I'm guilty of this as well. One of those measures is about using profanity. And as I've told you before, my self-talk is very profane. I don't often speak the words, but I think them, and so what's going on inside my mind needs to be transformed by the gospel.

I want to live my life worthy of the gospel and today, and I think we'll talk about this for another day or two, today I want to challenge us to ask God and get him to show us how a life worthy of the gospel changes our behavior today. What do we do differently today because we decided we want to live a life worthy of the gospel.

I think we'll find the answer to this question when we get it from the holy spirit, it won't look like many of the things that we've traditionally thought. We won't be thinking that we needed to go to church more or tithe more. I believe that God will call us to serve others more. Let's talk about this in the next episode too.

Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for considering what it means to walk worthy of the gospel. Let's live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ every day. Often that begins by punching in and asking him, okay, Jesus, here I am. What would you have me do today? Ask the holy spirit how you need to change your life today and make some notes and start making some changes.

And we'll talk a little bit more about this passage tomorrow. Thanks very much.

 

Would you consider God to be impartial? Let's talk about it today. I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast. Today I want to talk about Romans 2:11, and I'll read it in the English Standard Version "for God shows no partiality." That's it. That's the extent of the verse.

In Romans 2, Paul begins by showing that there's no advantage to being a Jew or to being a Greek. That the Jews, if they do well, they go to heaven. If they don't do well, they go to hell. He says in verses nine and ten "for there will be tribulation and distress, for every human being who does evil. The Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. The Jew first and also the Greek." That was verses nine and ten.

Paul's talking about judgment here, but he's also talking about judgment before he gets to the conversation about Jesus. This means that he's talking about our comparison of our lives to the law.

This whole section ends with Romans 3:23, or at least I think it ends there. I didn't do an in-depth study. I believe it ends at Romans 3:23 which says " for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." We all don't measure up. If everyone who does wrong suffers and everyone who does right is blessed and all of us do wrong, then that's bad news.

It's especially bad because God shows no partiality. I think it's easy to believe from time to time that God's just going to let us off the hook. The only reason why God lets us off the hook is because Jesus paid the price. This character trait of God, his absolute absence of partiality is a foundational tenant of our faith.

God is not partial. Everything will be judged. Everything will either measure up or won't. And guess what, "all have sinned," it says in Romans 3:23 "and fallen short of the glory of God." We have all fallen short .

I remember when I first learned about that verse, because I was told about an illustration. Imagine that you're trying to throw a rock a hundred miles. Well, you might throw it farther than me and I might throw it farther than you, but it doesn't matter because neither one of us are going to throw it a hundred miles. The bottom line of our faith is our works won't measure up, our works won't get it done. God shows no partiality. Therefore the wages of our sin, the penalty for our sin, all of that had to have been placed on Jesus.

I want to use this as a challenge in our workplace for today because we don't get to judge other people. We can't say "well, you're wrong is worse than my wrong." There are certain wrong things in the nation that you live in. I happen to be in the United States. There are certain things that are illegal that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong or right. But if they're illegal, they're in violation of the law of our country. My point is we have to be careful as Christians in the marketplace, not to get into right and wrong discussions when it comes to the legality of life in a nation. Our right and wrong is trying to live according to what God has done for us through the salvation that provided to us through Jesus.

And that's our job today, is not to judge other people. Our job today is to live with someone who has been spared from this frustration, from this utter damnation that we would receive. "For God shows no partiality." Remember today that God shows no partiality, but therefore we can be graceful to everyone because of what Christ has done for us.

And I believe that's our call in the workplace today. Let's take the grace of Jesus into our workplace and not the judgment and the harshness because in the end, none of us measures up. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for sharing this podcast. Let's go into our workplaces today and try and live a life that lines up with the grace of Jesus, not the harsh reality of sin. Because in any game of judgment, we all lose. It's only in the grace of Jesus Christ that you and I get to be winners. Thanks again for being a marketplace minister and for listening to this podcast.

How do we respond to resistance?

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr with Follower of One, thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast.

Today, I want to take a look at Acts 14:3. "So they remained for a long time speaking boldly for the Lord who bore witness to the word of his grace granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." Again that's Acts 14:3 from the English Standard Version.

Paul and Barnabas have just entered this town called OD conium or region. They entered there together and they went to the Jewish synagogue, and they spoke and many people believed, many of the Jews and the Greeks also believed in them. But the unbelievers stirred up one another and poisoned their minds against the brothers it says in Verse 2.

What did Paul and Barnabas do? Well, they didn't leave. They stayed. They remained for a long time. They went about speaking boldly for the Lord and the Lord bore witness to his word by signs and wonders. Now, many people talk about the charismatic movement and there are many people who believe that the signs and wonders are still present today. And I believe they are. I'm not sure exactly how, or how God does that, or why he shows up, or when he does what he does. That's not what this post is about today. Our conversation today is about the phrase "so they remained for a long time."

Sometimes I think as Christ followers, we pull out of work too quickly. We're anxious to get out of our workplace and go back to our suburb and be around our fellow Christians and hanging out in our fellow churches and do things with the people who believe the same things that we believe. We're quick to leave the area where we meet resistance. We're not quick to stay. These men remain for a long time. Yes. They spoke boldly for the Lord. Yes, the Lord bore witness to his word. And yes, signs and wonders were done by their hands. But even if those things hadn't been done, I believe Paul and Barnabas were called to remain. I believe we're called to remain. And sometimes I believe we can invest more of our energy into our relationships in our workplaces, because that's what God has called us to do.

Those people are more our neighbors today than many of the people that we live with in many situations, at least in mine. I don't know many of my neighbors very well. I live on a large lot, you know, somewhat rural part of town. And so all my neighbors are people I work with. They're people I interact with. I interact with people more on zoom these days since the pandemic, than I've done any other format. I know a few of our neighbors. Our job is to interact with whoever we interact with, to remain for a long time to be invested in their lives. We may get an opportunity to speak. We may only get an opportunity to serve, but I believe   God calls us to be invested in the lives of the people that he brings around us.

My challenge for us today is let's not be so quick to leave our workplace. Let's not be so quick to jump out of our work relationships so that we can be around the people who believe the same way we do. Let's be more invested in the relationships where we are, wherever we are in this moment is something ordained by God. He's allowed it to happen. The relationships that you can build with the people that you interact with every day, this begins with your family. Those are your primary relationships. But also your work relationships, you spend a lot more of your time in relationship with the people that you work with then you do. Then the people that you go to church with,

but the point is we work with a group of people 40 hours a week, or 50 hours a week, or whatever that is. And we're only with people at church, a few hours a week, two or three or four or less. Let's invest in the relationships where the most time is already being spent. Remain for a long time, ask God to put you to work in the lives of the people that you interact with. Watch him do that, watch him move in their lives because of the way that you are a blessing to them.

Thank you for being a Marketplace Minister and thank you for making a difference with your faith. What you do because you followed Jesus matters. Join us at https://community.followerofone.org, and let's get better at paying attention to the people around us, to remaining where we are and to making a difference because of our faith.

Thanks very much.

 

Where do you limit God? Wouldn't it be great to break through some of the artificial limits that we put on God? Let's talk about that today.

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast.

Our verse for today is John 4:11 "the woman said to him, sir. You have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep." Where do you get that living water? I was reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible. And the woman at the well is asking Jesus about this living water that he just told her about. I wonder sometimes if we don't draw limitations around the promises of God, and we put our own circumstances, and our own experience in between us and what God promises. And I see that often. Now this is not a prosperity gospel kind of message. I'm not a prosperity gospel teacher, but I do believe that there are things that God calls us to. And we miss out on those because we fail to trust him. We fail to do the work. We fail to believe and take the effort and do those things.

He basically told her in verse 10, that if she'd asked him, he would give her living wall. She doesn't ask for the living water. She points out his limitation based on what she can see. And then she asks him for more information, where do you get this living water?

She's imposed her own limits on this interaction with Christ. And the reason why you even think about this is Oswald Chamber talks about this in a February version of My Utmost for His Highest in one of the later February messages. And it's always been something that I come back to because I put limits on Jesus. I think that he won't use me in my workplace. I think that my own finances or my own personal situation or my own time budget, keep me out of the things that Jesus calls me to. But here he's telling her that he would give her this living water if she simply asked what are the things that we know that we can be asking God for and working for, but we don't ask because we don't believe they will happen?

Often if we ask for things for ourselves, those won't be answered. But if we ask God to put us to work, if I ask God to use me in the lives of the people that are interact with, if I ask God to show me how I can be a blessing to someone today I may not see the answer just simply because I really don't believe it's there, or I'm not looking for it. But I do believe that if we ask God to show us how we can be a difference maker in someone else's life today, he will give us opportunities. He will happily answer that prayer. And that's what I want to challenge us to do today.

Let's not put limits on God in our workplace, in the interactions that we have with people today. Let's ask God to put us to work. Jesus here I am, would you please show me how I can act in someone else's life and prompt me to take action? Prompt me to do something different than I would normally do so that you can be glorified. I want to live my life a little closer to you and a little further away from me on a daily basis. That's what this lady did.

Thank you for being a Marketplace Minister. Thanks for considering that question today. If you pray that prayer, thank you for praying that prayer. Let's walk in the things that God calls us to do today and let him use us.

One challenge I will give you is we always have another marketplace mission trips starting. Head over to https://community.followerofone.org and create a profile and join us on the next marketplace mission. You will find ways to pay attention to how Jesus can use you in your everyday life. I promise. We've done 21 of these so far and over 500 people taking part. So please join us on the next one. And let's let God put us to work in his kingdom.

Thanks very much.

 

Today, let's continue our conversation on eternal life.

Hi I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast. In yesterday's episode, I don't believe that I did a good job of talking about what eternal life really is. I did talk a little bit about how Jesus prayed that we would have this eternal life and that we would live in the kingdom of God, the eternal life equated to life in the kingdom. Today, I want to quote Romans 6:23 "for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's from Romans 6:23 from the New American Standard Bible.

I believe we get the eternal life when we trust Christ. We're told in Ephesians 2:1 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. This death that we experience is a separation from God. And that means we have no eternal life. We're separated from God. And the eternal life that we get is our relationship with God.

So the answer to the question, what is eternal life? It's a relationship with Jesus. And we step into God's kingdom when we listened to him and obey him on this planet or in the next life in heaven. I believe we can live our eternal life now. And I got that from the book that I mentioned yesterday. "Eternity is Now in Session" by John Ortberg. I highly recommend the book. I want to challenge us as believers in this part of the reason why I came back to this topic again today is because our eternal life has built into it obedience to God. I believe the minute we disobey God, we step out of that life. We have the ability to do that today. I talked about wanting to sleep through my alarm yesterday.

We have the opportunity to choose to obey Jesus .The Holy Spirit prompts us, or we see a command of his in scripture, or we feel a challenge to do something that we believe God would have us do. And we can step into the eternal life. We can walk in the kingdom of God and make a difference forever in the lives of another friend or coworker or relatives.

We have those opportunities today as Christ followers. And I believe it's important for us to walk in them. I believe our world changes when you and I get a little more tightly integrated with Jesus in our daily walk. Yeah, it requires us to be intentional and to be purposeful about what we do and how we do it.

And one of the ways that we do that in Follower of One' is we have this activity, this exercise that we do call a Marketplace Mission Trip. People look at me like I've lost my mind when I talk about this. But over 500 people have taken this Marketplace Mission Trip now. It's a two week exercise, a daily devotional each day, and an opportunity on the second week, we interact with one another on zoom calls and we encourage one another to be much more intentional about how we integrate our faith with Jesus into our daily job, practicing the five daily activities that we talk about in Follower of One.

Why not join us on a Marketplace Mission Trip? There's one starting in just a couple of weeks. The way you do this is you go to https://followerofone.org and you click on community and create a profile in our online community that will require you to request access because it's a private community. But once you request access and you're approved, And then you go to courses and click on "Mission Trip 21" or whatever the next marketplace mission trip is that you can fit onto your schedule.

Start that trip the minute you get there. And when the next trip begins, you'll be notified. Check it out, go to https://community.followerofone.org today and join us. We want to help one another integrate our faith daily. We want to live our eternal life now. We want to step into this obedience and this relationship that God has built and created for us, so that we can enjoy him now and forever. And we get to participate with him in the difference that he's making in our world.

Thank you for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference with your faith. Join us at https://community.followerofone.org, and let's take it a step further.

Thanks very much.

In this week’s episode, Mike speaks with Tom Bassford the founder and Executive Director of Significant Matters, Inc. He pastored for 30-plus years before starting Significant Matters in 2005. He brings a unique combination of church, not-for-profit, and executive insight to his role. His experience has been in both United States and international fields and he has helped churches, businesses, city governments, and various other organizations move their charitable work and missional efforts toward more sustainable solutions.

Episode Breakdown

• 1:45 - The Origin of Significant Matters
• 7:48 - Mission 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0
• 16:05 - Re-Defining Mission 
• 25:20 - How To Make A Difference Tomorrow

The Origin of Significant Matters

“Our mission is to work with individuals, churches, business-minded people, even businesses who want to create sustainable solutions for people trying to break the cycle of poverty.” Tom shares more about the origin story of Significant Matters along with the work of the organization to create another (and improved) narrative to helping people  - one that breaks away from the traditional model of how many Christians do mission. 

Mission 2.0

Tom breaks down the concept of “Mission 2.0” a common situation many churches find themselves in when people become bored with simply donating money. So instead, churches work to build partnerships throughout the community - stopping at the mobilization of money and volunteers. “That formula of more money and more volunteers is not solving the problem and is creating greater dependencies.” Tom and his team are now working on “Mission 3.0” which is all about structures and strategies to help people lift themselves out of poverty. By providing environments that help others lift themselves out of poverty we’re getting to the root of systemic changes, the work that will have a lasting impact.

Redefining Mission 

Missions are not just for non-profits, overseas trips, and other stereotypical ways the church designs systems to help people. Mike and Tom discuss more how to provide missional opportunities in other ways - right in our local community, workplace, and friend group.

Connect with Tom Bassford

• Significant Matters
• On Linkedin 
• EquityVest

Connect With Follower Of One

Join us over in our Online Community, get social with us; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Listen to our podcast on your way to work and subscribe using your favorite podcast app!

What is eternal life? And what difference does it make?

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thank you for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast. We do these podcasts to just give ourselves a shot in the arm as we get ready to go to work each day.

Today, I want to read from John 17:3, "and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Much of what I talk about today is something that I first really understood reading a book by John Ortberg called "Eternity is Now in Session" and the kingdom of heaven, or eternal life, in my opinion, those are two of the same things.

The kingdom that we have, we enter it when we do what God says, a kingdom is where what the king says goes. And so when we do what the king says, we enter the kingdom of God. That was the first claim Jesus made. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so we experience when we enter the kingdom of heaven when we begin by trusting Jesus and we begin obeying what God says, and that's when I believe our eternal life begins.

Many people, I think believe their eternal life begins when they die. So they die from this life and they go to heaven and they get to live their eternal life. But I believe I live my eternal life when I'm listening to God and doing what he says. When I'm interacting with his people, when I'm praying and serving him. When I'm engaged and talking when I'm recording these podcasts, I believe that I'm stepping into my eternal life a little bit now, as the down payment. As an encouragement, I get to experience this eternity now because I will live there forever. And the joy that I experienced in my work, the joy that I experienced by integrating my faith into what I do every day, that joy is living my eternal life now. That's the idea behind the book. "Eternity is Now in Session," I would encourage you to check it out.

For us today in the workplace, this eternal life is our opportunity to experience the joy that we will experience forever on the other side of heaven, we can experience pieces of it now. When we know God, and when we see him for who he is, I believe we're going to be very blown away. I don't think it will occur to me at that point in time to disobey him. But for example, this morning, I woke up before the alarm clock and I had this instant thought that God wanted me to get up and exercise, yet I was tempted to roll over and stay in bed. I chose today, I don't often choose this, but I chose today to get up and obey him, and I experienced joy because I did what Jesus asked me to do. I believe that's what he wanted me to do.

When I really know God, I don't think I'll ever want to disobey him. When I see him for who he is, I believe I will obey everything he says. In fact, I believe that if we could see him for who he was now, we wouldn't really have a choice. And that's why I believe he's hidden. We have to choose, but when we choose that's, when we get to see him. Because we've chosen to follow Jesus, we have this opportunity to step into our eternal life right now in the middle of a miserable staff meeting, or in difficult meeting with a customer, or a challenging situation with a coworker. We can live our eternal life now by being willing to obey Jesus and to take our relationship with him into those relationships that we have with people. We do this by praying and appreciating others, by knowing what we believe, and by serving others, and by speaking for ourselves. Those are the five daily activities that we talk about in Follower of One.

And Follower of One is an online community. It's designed to help each of us challenge one another to live our faith on a full-time basis. Why not check it out and join us at https://community.followerofone.org. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for bringing your faith with you wherever you go. Our faith matters. When we step into our eternal life, it becomes visible to the people around us, and hopefully they'll want to join us there too.

Thanks very much.

 

Do you pursue increase? What is increase? And is all increase good? Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thank you for joining us today again on the Follower of One Podcast. I'm grateful that you're here. Today I want to read another passage from Proverbs 11, we spoke about this in the previous episode.

Today I want to read verses 24 and 25. "One gives freely yet grows all the richer, another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched. And one who waters will himself be watered." Proverbs 11:24-25 from the English Standard Version. The word increase actually comes from the New American Standard and a couple of other translations.

What the ESV calls growing all the richer, other translations refer to that as increase. It's not necessarily riches, but I think it's more. And it's this desire that most of us have to grow and to gain more. There are some people who talk about how, when we give, we get things back, the Bible states this in many places. But do we give to get?

Giving to get in our motives are always in question. In fact, in 1st Corinthians 13:3, Paul says that if we give away everything, but we don't love other people, we gain nothing. So our motives are involved here. When we give freely, we grow all the richer, but if we withhold what we should give, we only suffer want.

I believe this is a reminder to us that giving is an act of trust in God. God's basically set up the world to operate differently than the way our brains work. Part of that is from our own fall. We broke the world. The world works the way God wants it to work, but we broke it because of our sin.

Whoever brings a blessing will be enriched. We gain when we bring a blessing, when we bring something to give away. When we have grace to give, when we share things over and above what might be asked or expected of us, we experience God rewarding us and helping us to grow and to increase. Does that mean that we can give away all of our money and be fine? I'm not sure. I don't know enough about it, but I do know that I want to ask God what he would have me give.

And I want to be quick to give when God calls me to give I've mentioned before that this is my year for the word trust. And I'm learning how to trust God. And he gives me these ideas to give a little more and to do more than I've done in the past and to trust him and theres this period of time where it looks like my trust will be for nothing. And I want to hang on and I want to follow Jesus in that

In our workplaces today, I want to challenge you to give a little more. Go the extra mile, be a blessing to the people around you. Our job is to bring Christ and our relationship with him to bear in every relationship we experience during the day. Our job is to be his ministers, to serve other people so that they might know him and might follow him.

As we serve him, often we will get called to give things away. We will be called to share more than might be expected of us. " Whoever brings a blessing will be enriched. And one who waters will himself be watered." Don't set a deadline for God either. We can't say well, if God doesn't give me X by a certain date, and then he must not be rewarding me. I want to pursue God until eternity, because I want to experience those rewards in eternity anyway.

Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for considering how you might give something away today, so that Jesus could become visible to the people that you work with. Let's be people who are quick to give, and watch God work his part of this bargain throughout the course of our lives. If you want to join a community of people who are actively pursuing this kind of life, a life where we give more than we get, and we trust God for the difference, go to over to https://followerofone.org and check it out.

Join our online community. We'd love to connect with you. We work to encourage one another, to share our faith and to make a difference every day. Thanks very much.