THE COMPASS OF LIFE

PART 4:

For a brief period of time in the early part of my business career, I was in a location

where hunting was big on the agenda of most men. I grew up in the city, and I knew very

little about hunting. My knowledge of how to manage myself in the woods was even less.

I bought all of the necessary clothing, boots, thermal underwear, gloves, warm hat, and a

compass. This was long before the days of having a portable GPS device available. To

top off the list of purchases, I bought an advertised rifle by Remington that supposedly

could kill anything on the North American continent. I was ready to go!

On a cold day in November, I joined a few other men who had experience in navigating

their way through the woods of northwestern Pennsylvania for a hunting day. It was one

of those days when it was really cold, and I lacked the endurance of some of the veterans

who were able to tramp through the woods for hours at a time regardless of the weather

conditions.

After a few hours of being outside, I told the guys that I was ready to call it quits. I pulled

out my compass and unknowingly held it very close to the

rifle barrel that was in my other hand. I told them I thought

I should go in a particular direction back to where my car

was located.

In the background I heard a few chuckles, and one of the men suggested that I move the

compass away from the rifle barrel and see if the needle was still pointing in the same

direction. When I did that, the needle snapped a full 15 degrees in another direction!

Wow! If I had followed the first reading, which was totally inaccurate due to my lack of

knowledge, I would have lost my way in the woods and mountains.

There is a huge application here. As we delve into the pages of the Bible, we discover we

are in the middle of two totally different value systems striving to win our commitment

and loyalty. The one is the perishing world system, and the other is the imperishable

eternal realm lasting forever. We need to be aware that the world system will always

point us in the wrong direction.All the "stuff" of this world, including power and prestige, has the potential to become

idols in our lives. When they replace the position that God should have in our hearts, we

miss out on the best that God has for us. "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the

grace that could be theirs" (Jonah 2:8, NIV84).

Unfortunately, for most people the reference points they use to direct their lives are Self,

the Crowd, and the World. But we must always remember, none of these are reliable and

not one of them will lead to fulfillment! They are all intrinsically flawed because they all

keep us from focusing on Jesus Christ.

Even the Christian has to be conscientious about pointing his needle toward Jesus!

We can be using the Compass of Life, but if we hold it too close to Self, the Crowd,

or the World, the magnetic pull of wrong directions will point us to the wrong road.

All three of these false reference points must be kept at a proper distance from us so

we get the right readings on our Compass of Life and stay headed in the right

direction.

When we direct our mind (the needle) to focus on Jesus (True North) we see the heavenly

realm revealed to us. It takes discipline and intentionality to focus on Jesus. If we allow

our mind to drift away from True North by the gravitational pull of Self, the Crowd, or

the World, we will lose our way in the spider web of the consumerlator. These influences

are like the rifle barrel that was too close to my compass. It nearly sent me to a disastrous

end.

SPRITUAL GAPS

The Christian who is actively cultivating his relationship with God has access to a part of

the Compass of Life system I like to call the Spiritual Global Positioning System. ThisSpiritual GPS guides us like the GPS system of the world. We have already seen in

Scripture that God will direct our steps when we

have a right relationship with him. The psalmist

made this great discovery also, "I will instruct you

and teach you in the way you should go; I will

counsel you with my loving eye on you" (Psalm

32:8). With the smart phones of today, we have

access to an eye in the sky or a satellite system that knows where we are and that can

guide us step by step to a particular destination. The same is true for the Spiritual GPS

system. God knows where we are and directs each one of us day by day precisely to

where we need to go.

Applying the Compass of Life concept to our lives enables us to become active

Converterlators. When we focus on Jesus (True North), we are able to ignore Self, the

Crowd, and the World, all of which promote our consumerlator tendencies. With our

mind pointing to Jesus we are able to convert the perishables of this world into

imperishable treasure for eternity.