Ideas, Sacrifice and Sufficiencey

According to the Bible, three specific groups of people occupy this planet--sinners, aka the world, Israelites, including Jews; and the Church, God's called ones. Each of these groups march unerringly to a specific, predetermined destiny. Two of them will experience significant failure before achieving success. The other group--the Church--should even now be People Learning Unlimited Success.

Most of God's people, however, struggle in the throes of self-defeating attitudes, impregnable barriers, burdensome cares, confusing delusions, self-deceptive ego, and intractible fears. Ironcially, God's people who seem to praise Him the most, believe Him the least. God's people who often appear to be most believing actually deny daily what they claim to profess.

I will make this point by examining three concepts in the Bible that identify freedom from lack. Those concepts are: sacrifice, an idea and sufficiency. First, let's define the terms as I am using them in this article. An idea serves as the catalyst for solutions and progress. When you discover a barrier impeding your progress, you need an idea that will show you how to breach the barrier. When you find yourself confronted by huge challenges, you need an idea to conquer those challenges. When you see your growth and development slowed by hinderances, even sins that so easily entangle us, you need an idea to relaunch your forward progress.

Sacrifice, in this context, refers to giving up something that you deem important, even useful, because God requires you to sacrifice it.

Sufficiency means simply having no lack, or as the Bible says in 2Cor. 12:9 "And He said to me, 'My graace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Consider a couple of examples of the power of an idea!

In the book of Genesis, we find the story of a teenager named Joseph, the next to the youngest son of his father, Jacob, aka Israel. Joseph's 10 older brothers disliked him with varying levels of intensity. They based their dislike on Joseph's presumed arrogance, and on the fact that he was positioned to inherit 75 percent of Jacob's estate. You see, when Jacob's firstborn--Reuben had sex with one of his father's wives--Bilhah--he disqualified himself to inherit the birthright. Suddenly the issue of inheritance was up in the air and became a source of family controversy and dysfunction. Remember that Israel had married four women--Leah, his first wife, Rachel, Leah's younger sister; along with Bilhah and Zilpah, the respective maidservants of the two wives. Thus, three firstborns--Dan, Asher and Joseph--could legally qualify for the birthright blessing. In today's value, this birthright blessing would be worth more than $100 million.

That family competition fueled a conspiracy against Joseph.

Thus, Joseph, 17, awoke one morning a foreigner and a slave in Egypt, owned, if you will, by a man named Potiphar. Joseph worked hard apparently without complaint. Joseph gained his "owner's" confidence. Thus we read the following in Gen. 39:4-6: "So Joseph found favor in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority. So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. Thus he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance."

After some time, Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph and the young Hebrew refused. She accused him of attempted rape, and Potiphar put Joseph in prison. There he was, in his mid to late 20s, a foreign slave and now a prisoner, convicted of attempted rape. Again, though, Joseph worked hard and gained an Egyptian's favor, this time the warden of the prison. Some years later, Joseph provided counsel for two men--the director of culinary services and the director of culinary security--who had been imprisoned, pending further investigation of an issue on the high ranking staff of Egypt's King. Joseph's counsel to these two men proved to be right on target and the director of culinary security, aka the butler for the King of Egypt, was re-appointed. Joseph asked the man to explain to the King that Joseph had been wrongfully convicted. About two years later, the Butler remembered his promise to Joseph. Subsequently, the King demanded Joseph's presence. The King explained his dilemma and has Joseph to make the troubling situation clear to this powerful monarach. Joseph provided the counsel and at the end of his comments, the young man proposed a powerful idea.

"Now therefore, let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt., Let Pharaoh do this and let him appoint officers over the land to collect one fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine."

You probably know the rest of the story. In a matter of hours, this man, Joseph, now 30 years old, having been a foreign slave and convicted of attempt rape, suddenly became the second-in-command in Egypt, then one of the world's most powerful nations. The inestimable value of a powerful idea fueled Joseph's promotion. Notice though, the process. First sacrifice, or Joseph's experiences in Egypt as a foreign slave and convicted criminal. Then success and sufficiency arrived after Joseph acted on the value of a powerful idea. Thus Joseph became positioned to provide value to hundreds of thousands of individuals, including his entire family. That's just one example of the amazing value of a powerful idea.

Powerful ideas are often relatively simple and their power rests in timing, circumstances, logic and the boldness of the presenter. Consider a simple idea, presented at the right time, packaged in impeccable logic and presented by a bold seven-year-old, that saved a deliverer.

Miriam was the firstborn child of two married Hebrew slaves in Egypt--Amram and Jochebed. She was about four years old when her brother Aaron was born, just before the King of Egypt announced a new law of male genocide for the Hebrew slaves. Miriam's baby brother was born about three years later, not long after the law was passed. Their parents could not bring themselves to turn this beautiful boy over to the Egyptian authorities to be executed by drowning. When the baby was about three months old, his parents put him in a small ark and set the "basket" afloat on the Nile River. As the little ark floated along the river, Miriam followed on the shore, and when it floated into a place where Pharoah's daughter frolicked with her friends and servants, including guards, this bold young girl seized an opportunity. Undaunted by the obvious danger of a slave, even a youngster, approaching a member of the royal family, Mirian strode across this shallow point of the river and proposed a simple, logical, but amazing idea to Pharoah's daughter. "Shall I go and call a nurse," the youngster asked, "from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?" What a powerful, yet simple, idea that would save a three-month-old baby boy. This boy would later become an instrument in God's hand to take down one nation--Egypt--and liberate another--Israel.

Yet again, notice the triumverate concepts--sacrifice, idea and sufficiency. After saving her brother--Moses--Miriam continued living the deprived life of a slave, while the brother she saved grew up in the royal palace, the adopted son of Pharoah's daughter. Later, she endured the stigma of being the sister of a convicted murderer and escaped convict. Yet 40 years later, she experienced the sufficient joy of helping her two younger brothers lead a new nation to freedom and the awesome potential of sudden prosperity.

What happens when a person rejects a challenging, even strange, idea?

We find an example near the end of the 3.5-year ministry of Jesus, the Christ. A young wealthy Jewish man asked Jesus the following question: "What must I do that I may have eternal life?"

I will not take the time here to discuss the obvious fallacy in his question, nor the self-deceptions in his replies to Jesus' responses. Let's jump ahead to a simple, strange, albeit logical, and amazing idea. In Mark 10:21, we see this idea presented simply and boldly by Jesus: "Then Jesus, looking at him--the young rich man--loved him and said: 'One thing you lack. Go you way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross and follow me.' " The next verse summarizes the young man's reaction: "He was sad at this word and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions." Her claimed he desired eternal life. Yet, he refused to invest his temporal resources to receive an ever-living profit. He summarily rejected this idea from the King of Ideas--the source of all good things--and left before the end of the conversation. At the end of the conversation, Peter asked: "What about those of us who have sacrificed everything for an eternal Return On Investment? Is there anything in this deal of us now. Jesus answered: "Assuredly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time . . .with persecutions--and in the age to come, eternal life."

Let's say that the young man who originally asked the question had a net worth of $100,000. He missed a guaranteed $10 million Return On Investment because he refused to accept a powerful idea. Again the three concepts ruled. Jesus proposed an idea that required the man to sacrifice in exchange for abundant sufficiency.'

The most effective and potentially most profitable ideas flow abundantly during times of great need, like right now! Therefore, examine your life, even the lives of your family, including previous generations. Have you and yours lived with great, seemingly insurmontible sacrifices? If you answered "yes," then you should listen carefully for your idea.

Remember, sacrifice ends when you embrace and work a powerful idea to its fullest potential. That's how you arrive at abundant sufficiency.

See you at the top!