"Profit Centers"

More on the Topic of "new relationships" and "new households" and "new jobs"

2/26/2013

Amongst those who are recently married, or considering a new marriage and family and home (and there are many many : ) in cities of folks we’ve been near to for 20 to 30 years), we’ve discussed in detail a Christ-centered view of “courtship.” We’ve discussed related issues of spending time together Jesus’ Way, and text message and FaceTime thoughts, and the focus and emphasis and pointing each other to Jesus and outward service of Jesus, rather than gazing at each other. We’ve discussed that “the door you enter in (the way you approach the relationship NOW—prayer and worship and fruitfulness in Christ, versus self-serving) will lead to the ‘Room’ you end up in.” If you will not be CHRIST-centered now, you will likely only “use up the Ground” in self-serving uselessness later on. The old excuses of “let me try out my yoke of oxen first” or “let me finish getting this marriage thing going” or “as soon as the children are grown” nonsense lead only to wood, hay, and stubble—suitable only for the fire. We’ve discussed the absolute necessity of getting it Right NOW, not “after” some other nonsense put before Jesus and “seek FIRST the Kingdom.” The door you go through NOW will end up in the room you have made for yourself as a result. We’ve discussed thoroughly, do NOT think you can be Christ-centered “later” in the relationship if you have chosen now fun, or tom-foolery, or hormones, or appearance, or romance, or focused on each other rather than Jesus and His Work and His People. It won’t happen without massive repentance later on, so why go there? For Jesus, and in gratitude to Him for His undeserved grace, let’s do it Right for Him NOW. We’ve discussed all of that. : )

Another thought, related, involves the idea of a “new biological family” beginning at marriage, and with a new job and income and perhaps new place of residence.

Congratulations. : )

Now, you’ve Built well in courtship. What do you need to See about your new “family” and “home” and “job”?

profit center

noun

1. a segment of a business organization that has a profitable base viewed in some ways as both complete and incomplete of the business as a whole. A separate entity, but not separate, with decision-making capabilities, and yet full responsibility to the business as a whole. Profit centers are often composed of several cost centers. Profit centers are evaluated on measures that relate expenses (the input to the profit center, the expense to the larger entity and its components) to output, profit contributed by said profit center. See also Return on Investment.

2. any source of profit.

An obvious issue in the world, though not with true Saints of God, is becoming consumed with “your own paneled house” (Haggai, chapter 1)—and your stuff, and your schedule, and your evenings, and your weekends, and your garden, and your job, and your sleep, and your furniture, and your blah blah. True followers of the Lamb, to the contrary, are “consumed with zeal for the Father’s HOUSE” as is their Master, Jesus. True Believers “seek first the KINGDOM”—not their job and house and biology. “Everyone who claims to be in Jesus must walk as He walked,” according to the “one whom Jesus loved.”

A way to Better view your new home, opportunities, schedule, job, eventual children by God’s Grace is not as a reason or place to hide from Jesus and His Ways and His daily Life, but instead as a Synergistic TEAM to better do what you could not have done by yourself, for Jesus and His House and in the marketplace of the Lost. We help each other expose, repair, and cover each other’s blind spots, to DO the Work, not retire from the Work (which we may or may not add on the side of our self-priorities).

As a new “Profit Center” we look for ways to CONTRIBUTE far more as a Team than we could have or would have with our blind spots and limited gifts and resources. New job? Will you spend your money on your paneled house, or realize you are now FINALLY able to contribute to Jesus and His Work, instead of being a taker? Will you sacrifice for the Work of Jesus, or instead continually bless yourself “until I get what I want” and then maybe begin to do what in Faith should have been done from minute one?

As a new “Profit Center” will you press your spouse and children into the Vineyard, or will you coddle them, put guilt on them for self-purposes, and cloister into a faulty definition of “phamily” as the pagans who know not the Family of God so often do?

What will you contribute to the larger entity of Life? Will you contribute, today, and each day, acts of sacrifice, of forgiveness, or a word chosen to encourage? Will you intentionally compliment or thank or be courageous enough to ask a hard question, respectfully, for their Future and for Jesus? Will you choose areas of God’s Work and the needs of His Purposes as Opportunities to press gifts into Jesus’ hands from the seen realm into the unseen realm?

Return on Investment? Rate of Return? At my company, we weren’t even allowed to submit a proposal that didn’t contribute a total “payback” between 2.5 and 4.0 years. In your new “Profit Center” Father is granting you… will you waste on “your own paneled house” those first 2.5 to 4.0 years with nothing returned on all that He and others have invested that have made your life and new family even possible, in a Godly way?

Nah. Let’s do it Right, from the Beginning, the Genesis. Okay? : ) “For the Saints of God, and for the Lamb who was slain”… and for the Work of the Author and Perfecter, the Great Architect.

“Zeal for My Father’s HOUSE consumes Me!”

And we are of His Spirit, undistracted, unswerving! His Body, His Life on Earth.

The Spirit AND the Bride say, “COME, LORD JESUS!”

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