"The Search for Significance" by Robert S. McGee

The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee

Significance: a sense of value, importance, and worth, having a meaning.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bearfruit-fruit that will last…John 15:16

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

Wow!!! Wonderful!!! God’s definition of how significant I am to Him. This is beyond my wildest dreams! These versus are just a few that tell you and me how much we are worth- our significance- to God.

Where do you think you have looked to find significance?

What do you think you have tried to do to make you significant?

Additional Resource: Search For Significance Robert S. McGee

Love, the greatest thing in the world

   This little book of only 111 pages is packed with ideas on the art of living and loving abundantly, as Christ intended, and inspire you to begin today to share God’s love through unselfish acts of kindness that can bring you and those around you closer to God.

   Dwight L. Moody praised Henry Drummond, “The one great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to each other.”

The Greatest Thing in the World

Love

Inspiration from

1 Corinthians 13

By Henry Drummond

   Following are a few experts from this small book:

“Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in-a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man: Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore ‘Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.’”

“What was Christ doing in the carpenter’s shop? Practicing. Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience. He increased in wisdom and in favor with God and man. Do not quarrel therefore with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is molding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful though you see it not, and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection.”

“Yet this is what Christianity is for-to teach men the Art of Life. And its whole curriculum lies in one word-‘Learn of Me.’ Unlike most education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had from books or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from the life. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We learn His art by living with Him, like the old apprentices with their masters.

   Now we understand it all? Christ’s invitation to the weary and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new principle-upon His own principle. ‘Watch My way of doing things,’ He says. ‘Follow Me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly and you will find Rest.’”

“David a man after Mine own heart, who shall fulfill all My will.”

All our ideal man… 

• wants is a reason for his being alive at all. Hebrews 10:7
• needs is Sustenance. John 4:34
• needs is Society. Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35
• wants is Language. He must speak to his Friend.
• does not always pray. There is such perfect blessedness in praying the ideal prayer that language fails him sometimes. Psalms 119:54
• wants is an Education. Psalm 143:10 wants is a Promise. 1 John 5:14 wants to know is how long? 1 John 2:17

How to be the greatest through humility

“Whosoever would be greatest among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11)

Humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all. Humility means the giving up of self and becoming perfect nothingness before God.

 Gleanings from Humility by Andrew Murray

   “Whosoever would be greatest among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). Jesus simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper of all. The faithful servant who recognized his position finds a real pleasure in supplying the wants of the master or his guests. When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we will begin to learn that it is our true nobility. We will begin to understand that being servants of all is the highest fulfillment of our destiny, as men created in the image of God. (pg. 7)

   Our purpose for being…”…Thou has created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11) (pg 9)

   Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of man. It is the root of every virtue.

   And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. (pg 10) …evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from humility. (pg 97)

   Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others, it is the root of all, because it alone assumes the right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do all….It is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all. (pg 12)

   …the first and chief mark of the relationship of man with God, the secret of his blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all. (pg 13)

   It is from our pride we need, above everything, to be redeemed. (pg 16)

   Even as we need to look to the first Adam and his fall to know the power of the sin within us, we need to know well the Second Adam and His power to give within us a life of humility as real and abiding and overmastering as has been that of pride. We have our life from and in Christ…(pg 17)

   Christ found this life of entire self-renunciation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father’s will, to be one of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving everything to God…And because Christ had thus humbled Himself before God, and God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble himself before men, too. He was able to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of Himself to God, to allow the Father to do in Him what He pleased, no matter what men around might say of Him, or do to Him. (pg 23)

   He teaches us where true humility takes its rise and finds its strength-in the knowledge that it is God who works all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to imparta life in God that comes through death to sin and self. (pg 24)

   “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” God wants us to believe that Jesus means this! We all know what the character of a faithful servant or slave implies. Devotion to the master’s interests, thoughtful study and care to please him, delight in his prosperity and honor and happiness. There are servants on earth in whom these dispositions have been seen, and to whom the name of servant has never been anything but a glory.

   To many of us it has been a new joy in the Christian life to know that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find that His service is our highest liberty - the liberty from sin and self. (pg 31)

How to get my needs met: false beliefs

"MYTHS" regarding my needs

 (formed from the sin nature + childhood perceptions of family, culture. school, religion, etc.)

(from the Parrotts):

* Everything in our relationship will get better

* Everything bad in my life will disappear

* We expect exactly the same things for marriage

* My spouse will make me whole (happy, content, peaceful, joyful) Plus.

* My spouse is to be my completes, otherwise, why marriage?

* I am entitled to my spouse giving me respect, appreciation, encouragement, listening .......... and

* If he/she doesn't, it is destructive to me. I can never get over this.

* If we don't verbally communicate about our emotions, we can't have intimacy.

* We become one person at the marriage union.

* I am entitled to my husband being the spiritual leader, and assuming his role as "head".

* I am entitled to my wife being submissive and compliant.

* I am entitled to my husband/wife meeting my sexual needs.

 

 "MYTHS" regarding my needs

* I am responsible for my "other's" emotional well-being", so

* I am responsible for "seeing to it" that he/she is content, that the "waters are calmed", and for "fixing" (or giving solutions) and making things right (because)

* "My peace and emotional well-being is dependent on my spouse and others being O.K.

and on their opinions ...... and

* Then I will have acceptance and love and know I am of worth.

* I need a person (spouse) to be O.K.

or, * I am entitled to him/her making things O.K., making decisions for me, and keeping me on track, (so I can avoid being criticized and thus, avoid bean,- less than perfect)

* I must be perfect and avoid seeming a failure so I will be loved.

* My security is to be found in my mate's behaviors (emotional, financial, physical, etc.)

* If my husband/wife doesn't appreciate me, it means I'm not worthy of love.

* I am entitled to my husband/wife giving me space to make mistakes, to be my own person without her/him trying to change, criticize or ignore me.

* Our relationship must be fair, and I can't accept that I am not entitled to what the Lord commands my wife/husband to do and be.

* My unhappiness is my spouse's (or my circumstances') fault.

These beliefs (can lead to behaviors that can look good or bad. They lead to

 

CONTROL, MANIPULATION, false submission or domination

 

Hurt, rage, arguing, whining, pouting, dependency, unforgiveness, anxiety, hopelessness, depression, illness, irresponsibility

  Answers to MYTHS: John 8:32 and John 14:6