How do you represent the people for whom you work?  Are you a front-line employee who meets customers face to face as their first point of contact, or do you do something in the office where customers never see your face?  Are you called on to speak publicly to groups of people?  Do you represent the public school system as a teacher or administrator? Are you a switchboard operator or dispatcher who acts as a go-between, transferring information and directing phone calls? When there is a particularly tough job that needs to be done, does your boss send you to do it, or does he send somebody else?  If there is a particularly tough customer to deal with, does he talk to you after everybody else has given up on him?
 

When I was working in Southeast Texas (this happened in 1981), I went to work one morning to find a note at the dispatch office from one of our company executives.  He was on a trip to Denver, Colorado, driving his company car, but the car broke down in Dallas; He left it at Dallas Love field and flew the rest of the way.  Since my job was to keep the equipment going, I had to get the car fixed and back to Southeast Texas without spending a fortune in cash or having to trust some Dallas repair outlet.

 An hour later I was standing in line at the local airport. Everybody else was carrying luggage. I had a padlocked toolbox, but no luggage, because I had no plans for failure.

 My mission was to find the car, repair it with the stuff I had in my small toolbox, and drive it back home all in one day. I had no idea at this point what was wrong with the vehicle.  But at the age of twenty-one and with a few years of successful troubleshooting already under my belt, I felt confident that I could figure it out. Besides, the boss believed in my ability to get the job done.

By the grace of God, I managed to get the car fixed and I drove it the 450 miles back home.
 

As believers in Jesus Christ, having repented from our sins and confessed Him as Lord, we have been bought with a very high price and we are to glorify God in our bodies (I Corinthians 6:20). And while we may not be troubleshooters as such, He does have a job for us to do. Our bodies are now temples of the Holy Spirit  (I Corinthians 3:17) and should be treated as such.  Our "old  man" has passed away and He has regenerated us, spiritually baptized us into His body, re-made us in his image, and we now have the ministry of reconciling others to Him (II Corinthians 5:17).

 As new creatures in Christ, we've been born again (John 3:3, I Peter 1:22), this time of the Spirit of God (Acts 2:38), so that we might worship Him in Spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). Since we've been born twice, now we will die only once.  Those who were only born into a fleshly existence will die twice (Revelation 20:14). First, they die physically, and a second time spiritually as they are eternally separated from God and thrown into the lake of fire at the Great White Throne of Revelation 20:11.  At this point, earth and its atmosphere will be gone, burned up according to II Peter 3:10, and the cursed fossils of all the dead creatures since the fall of man will have been destroyed. 

 Whereas we had been slaves to sin, we are now to be servants of righteousness (Romans 6:17-18). If we abandon the life He has chosen for us and live in obedience to our depraved flesh, we can be disciplined, eventually to the point of physical death if we don't respond and repent. The problem is that when a child of God chooses to live in sin, it is hard even for God to renew him or her to repentance (Hebrews 6:4-6). 

 As His sons and daughters, we should expect His discipline (Hebrews 12:6-8)
 When we confessed Him as Lord of our lives, Jesus bought us with his blood, adopted us into His family as His children (Romans 8:15-17) becoming joint heirs with Him. Jesus gave each of us a spiritual gift of His choosing ( I Cor. 12:11), and changed the course of our lives. Each of us has become a part of Him, and His Spirit abides deep within each of us (John 14:16), having sealed us unto the day of redemption.  He will never leave us (Hebrews 13:5), not now, not ever, but He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30) by our disobedience. 

 When we're under fire by the enemy (and we are just about every day), Jesus expects absolute obedience, undaunted courage, bulletproof faith, and rugged endurance. Abiding in His love, we are supposed to let Him cast out our fears (I John 4:18, II Timothy 1:7) replacing  our fear with confidence, not in our flesh, but in Him. We are to be diligent to hang on to that confidence in Him, not throwing it away (Hebrews 10:35).  We are supposed to bear within our personalities the fruits of His indwelling Spirit, thus producing fruit for Him in the form of services rendered to others.  We should be focused on  planting the Word in the hearts of those around us and be the salt and light of the world as only a true Christian can be. We are a peculiar people, a holy nation, and we are to keep ourselves pure in His sight with everything we do, say, read, watch, and think about.  We must crucify the flesh with its passions and desires and focus on the eternal rather than the temporal. When we as believers die physically, our spirit departs this temple and we know fully, even as we are known, and we will see Him face to face (I Corinthians 13:12).  For the true believer in Jesus Christ, to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord (see II Corinthians 5:8) in Paradise (Luke 23:43).

 Every believer in Jesus Christ has a job to do. We are all intended by Christ to be ministers of His grace and He has a mission for each of us to accomplish. Furthermore, we're all ambassadors of the greatest kingdom in all creation.  How we're perceived in the eyes of the world will greatly determine the light in which worldly people see our Savior...
 

 "...we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating you through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."      II Corinthians 5:20b

 On the job, the quality of our work (as well as our relationships with the people there) is even more important to Jesus Christ than it is to the man who signs our paychecks (Colossians 3:23).  To quote something I've heard many times, you may be the only Jesus some people ever see.

 So what sort of ambassador are you?  Do you represent the Lord of glory in the things you say and the work you do, or are you an ambassador for the prince of the power of the air?  You can't have it both ways!

 "He that is not with Me is against Me and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad."               Matthew 12:30

 We all fall short in one area or another.  Do you laugh at filthy jokes?  Are you quick to help when people need it?  Do you complain when you're given a tough assignment, or do you shut up and get the job done?  Do you keep your cool when  it seems everything is going wrong, or do you blow up? How do you treat people?  Do you bite their heads off, or are you gentle and humble in heart, like Jesus?
 According to A.W. Tozer, we are known by:

1) what we want most
2) what we think about most
3) how we use our money
4) what we do with our leisure time
5) the company we keep and enjoy
6) who and what we admire
7) what we laugh at

 As we engage in our day-to-day grind, we  encounter all sorts of situations that reveal what sort of person we are on the inside. During this God-ordained sifting process, we discover things Jesus wants us to consider about ourselves, and mistakes if we will, and we've all made plenty of them.  But nobody ever gets closer to the goal by looking over their shoulder and becoming embroiled in past errors.  If you blew up  in somebody's face yesterday, ask the Holy Spirit to bear His fruit in your life so you won't do it next time.  And don't expect maturity overnight.  Paul was decades into his ministry for Christ when he wrote his Philippian letter, and he was careful to say that he still hadn't laid hold of the maturity he was shooting for...

 "... not that I have already obtained it, or have already done perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.    
 "Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained."   Philippians 3:12-16

 Guys, when a pretty pair of legs goes walking by and you can't take your eyes off them, maybe you haven't finished crucifying your flesh. Ladies, when you snap at people without thinking or if circumstances frequently irritate you to the point of fierce anger, maybe the Spirit of God is allowing these things to reveal the "different attitude" Paul wrote about.  Every believer (myself included) is a work in progress, and we need to realize that.  The question is, what kind of progress has He made in my life and yours lately?

 We all need to be the best ambassadors for Christ that we can possibly be. It never has been an easy race to run, but the rewards are eternal.        R.W.M.