Did You Know Why God Sent Me Here?

"And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you.  For many will come in My name saying, "I am the Christ," and will mislead many" (Matt. 24:4-5).

Hey Gang:  I ran into a neat story that had a hidden principle tucked away in it.  It seems a CEO had reached the end of his working tenure and was about to hang up his spurs.  But how to pick his successor was of great concern to him.  He wanted just the right person who would pick up his mantle and continue the good work that he had done. 

After much thought and prayer, he felt lead to give each person a pail with a seed in it and tell them they had  one year to care for the seed;  the one who had the finest plant at the end of the year would be his replacement. 

That really concerned  employee, John, because his success in growing anything green had been a dismal failure, but he decided to give it his best shot.     He tried everything, got professional advice from the local flouriest, invested in mucho types of nutrients with absolutely no results.

Well, the big day finally arrived when all would bring their finished product and show them off.  The room was filled with every conceivable type of plant, big ones, little ones, no two plants alike.  And then there was John with pail and seed but no green plant.  He was more than devastated, for he felt that he had the ability to be the next CEO and even felt a little put down that this was method for choosing the replacement. 

The big moment arrived; the CEO stepped to the podium and congratulated all of the participants for the fabulous job of growing such beautiful, and often exotic, plants.  And then came the "BUT" "they were all phonies".  You see he had given each seeds that were treated ' not to grow'; the seeds had been  neutered and were dead.  There was only one person that day that had the integrity and  honesty to stand up and say, "I blew it boss".  The end of the story?  John was chosen as the new CEO that day.   

In my work with children I was blessed to cross swords with a very unique young man.  What made him unique - there was no question he had earned the right to be tagged with the title "delinquent", but he was a true albatross- in that he was a delinquent with honesty and a degree of integrity.   I did not hesitate to fess up and admit that he had done some pretty hurtful things to people.   

One day he was assigned to work with the house mother in kitchen duties, which in the eyes of the boys was the best duty in the house.  First, because they were able to have the house mom's total attention and secondly, there were the bites of all the goodies to make sure they passed muster.

In the course of conversation, Paul said to Joella, "Do you know why God sent me here?"  To which Joella responded,  in a joking  manner ,”Paul, I haven't a clue why God would do that to me!"   His answer, "To smoke out the phonies!"  Wow! I wonder how many people we cross swords with in our lifetime that have been assigned the very specific duty of "smoking out the phonies"?

Jesus warned that in the last times there would be a whole barn full of false prophets, false teachers and people who, by their fruits, will not pass muster when they stand before the Father and give an accounting of what they did with His Son Jesus Christ. 

 Soooooo, warriors incorporated, keep the oil in your lanterns filled to the hilt and keep your armor spit polished and in place and, under no circumstances, take off the helmet of salvation and begin to look around....Satan has his zapper loaded and ready to devour anyone who lets their guard down.