How bad do you want it?

by Ryan Campbell...

Hey, watched a short video recently on success and it really stood out to me.

There was a young guy who wanted to successful, so he went to this wise old man and asked him how he could reach the level the he was at. The old man told him if he wanted to reach the same level he would need to come to the beach the next morning. So the next morning the young guy turns up on the beach wearing a suit and looking all slick. (He should’ve worn shorts).

The old man grabs his hand and asks him “how bad do you want to be successful” and the young guy says “real bad”. The man then tells the young guy to walk out into the water until he’s waist deep. At this point the young guy is thinking the old man is crazy but he does it anyway. When he’s waist deep the old man tells him to come out further until the water reaches his shoulders.  But again the old man tells him to come out further; the water by this point has reached the young guys mouth. The young guy then decides he’s had enough and is about to leave when the old man asks him “I thought you wanted to be successful”, so the young guy stays.

 The old man tells him again to go out further and before the young guy has time to react the old man grabs his head and holds him under the water. The guys struggling and can’t get free but just before he passes out the man pulls him out! He then says to the guy, “if you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you’ll be successful.”

This might sound strange but this video really challenged me when thinking about reaching people for Jesus. What am I trying to say? When you can’t breathe the only thing you’ll do is try to get some air, right? You don’t care about how people see you, you don’t care about how cool you are and you don’t care about anything other than getting air. I’m pretty sure that guy wanted air really bad.

So we say we want to reach people for Jesus but how bad do we really want it? Do we want it as much as the young guy wanted to be successful? Do we care about what people are thinking? Do we care about how cool we look or do we just care about people coming to know God?

Going by the video, people are willing to do anything to be successful, so why aren’t we more willing to do anything for Jesus? God was willing to do anything for us so that we would know him and have a relationship with him. He sent Jesus to die for us, Romans 5:6-8 says When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. God was willing to do anything for us, we need to be willing!

If we want to reach people for Jesus, we’ve got to be willing to give things up. How bad do you want it? Your family, your friends they all need to know Jesus as their saviour! Reaching people needs to be one of our priorities.  Our job is to reach and show people the love of God! But are we willing to do anything? Are we constantly thinking what can I do for this person? How can I show them God’s love?

After doing this I definitely have to sit down and have a rethink about how bad I want to help people that need Jesus! So my question is...... How bad do you want it?