Steve Jobs is arguably one of the most influential businessmen of all time and considered by many as a modern day rockstar. Steve developed a cult like following and is just as popular in death as he was in life (and no I am not comparing him to Jesus!)

The reason I am starting this BLOG with Steve Jobs is because I recently heard the story of how the current CEO, Tim Crook came to work at Apple. In 1997, Tim was working for Pepsi Schwepps having previously worked for Compaq computers when one day his phone rang and the conversation apparently went something like this;

Phone rings...
‘Hi Tim, Steve here...’
‘Hi Steve...’
‘Tim, do you want to keep selling sugarwater or come with me and change the world?’
Steve Hangs Up...

Which for me is strikingly similar to the fisherman in Matthew and Jesus’ call to them....

Do you want to keep catching fish or come with me and change the world?

It’s a life changing encounter for both Tim Crook and the fisherman, and it’s the same with the idea of being a new creation in Christ... our encounter with Jesus is in fact... life... changing.

It was yet another hot day in Africa and this time I was in the back of a car travelling around 80kms west of the town I was staying in, however, because of the mandatory bomb checkpoints every 10kms and poor state of the roads this relatively short trip would take us over 3hrs.

Today was Saturday (the second day of the weekend) and I was once again off to meet a group of secret believers. I’d heard a lot about this group of believers. I knew they met in a house, I knew there were over 400 of them, the prayer meeting before the actual service went for over an hour and that if we wanted a seat we’d need to be there early!

As we got closer to the church my guide tells me that just around the corner is where a suicide bomber blew themselves up 2 weeks ago. As we rounded the corner the devastation that a person with a bomb strapped to them causes was mind blowing to me – the sheer radius of the devastation brought a scary reality to something I had only ever seen on TV.

A few minutes later we were at the church and as I walked into this multi-level house I was astounded at just how many people were there, crammed into every room in the house and similarly to the last church there were people on the door that appeared cautious until they realised you were a fellow believer. The church consisted of mainly Muslim background believers and for me seeing people who have come out of a largely oppressive religion now apply the disciplines they learnt from Islam (i.e. commitment to prayer, meditation, reading the scriptures) into Christianity was phenomenal.

As I sat crammed into this house perched on the edge of an extremely uncomfortable wooden pew for more than 3 hours, I felt God talk to me about the idea of giving your life for God... you see, in the west we often equate this statement with martyrdom or suicide bombers who blow themselves up in the name of god (little ‘g’)... but for the believers that I was worshipping with it was so much more than that!

The way they interpret this statement is more like giving life... breath... colour... to God, and there is a lot more living to do than dying. They want to see the world won for God, they want to see North African’s meet Jesus and part of this is giving life to the things of God.

In Christ we are new creations, we are called like the fisherman to change the world.

Sugarwater or Life?

What will you choose?

If you’d like to book a speaker or find out more about the ministry of Open Doors please email us at mhb@od.orgwe’ll happily get straight back to you. Alternatively you can follow us on facebook or support our ministry by making a donation or buying a shirt. We would also love you to share this series of BLOGs with your friends and family as we want to change the spiritual temperature of Australia and see a generation switched on to the things of God.