One of my biggest downfalls is trying to do a million things at once. I have somehow believed the lie that I can live in a constant state of multi-tasking. I will try to type 3 emails and talk on the phone while trying to read a book all at the same time. Most of the time it ends up being chaos. Just ask my wife. 

Lately, I have read a couple new books about what successful business people do with their time. Bestsellers like "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" and "The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results" all have the same message for people who want to be leaders. 

Great leaders learn how to say "Yes" to the best thing and say "No" to everything else.

Great leaders find the one thing that is most important. The one thing that matters. The one thing that is worthy of their time and they pour everything into that one thing. They invest their energy, their passion, their money, their time into that one thing. For most of the world that one thing is their job or their talent or their business or families or their hobbies, they have decided to devote everything to that one thing.

What if Christians are called to share the same ONE THING? 

Before we came to Jesus, we all had many things that grabbed our attention and our devotion. We were committed to being an incredible doctor, a phenomal singer, a professional athlete, or a remarkable teacher. You poured all that you had into whatever you thought was YOUR one thing. 

Now that you have been redeemed by the grace of Jesus, your passions have been redeemed for God's glory. You were called to lay down your passion for YOUR one thing for GOD'S one thing!

You were called to use your time now for God's glory. Discipleship involves time management. To be careless with your time is not Christ-like. Listen to Paul - "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." (Eph 5:15-16)

So what were Jesus' final words? He gave a grand invitation to be a part of HIS one thing. He was calling us to make HIS one thing, OUR one thing as his church - "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

This is not a call for every person to quit their jobs, to sell all that you own, and to go to the jungle in Africa. It might mean that for some people and that would be beautiful. More people should be going to the ends of the earth to do OUR one thing. 

It is the call for every Christian to do the ordinary things of everyday life with gospel intentionality.

It's the call for every Christian to refocus how you see your jobs, your neighborhoods, your families, your gym membership, your classmates, and your coffeeshops with eyes to make disciples. It's the call for us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus in making disciples. 

As Francis Chan said, "Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.”

Jesus has given us ONE THING to do as his church. Let's not settle for being great at fantasy football. Let's not settle for making the dean's list. Let's not settle for conquering a video game. Let's not settle for pursuing our careers whatever they cost our families. Who cares if we succeed and are applauded by the world for worldly success.  Heaven has no shelves for your trophies and no walls for your plaques. Even our crowns we will cast at God's feet. (Revelation 4:10)

Let's make our ONE THING, the one thing we were called to do by Jesus - to make disciples that love Jesus.