Great Reversal.

On my mobile phone I discovered a game that I had not played since I was a kid: Reversee!
Have you ever played it?
It is simple. You have two coloured counters, generally black and white. The aim is to fill a checker board with counters of your colour. This is achieved by placing your own counters on the board when it is your go or by ‘reversing’ the colour of your opponent’s counters. This is done by hemming in a line of your opponent’s counters with two of yours; all of these can then be reversed.
It was a great game. Occasionally it would end up in a disagreement/argument/fight :o) but it was always fun.

Recollecting this as my mobile beat me once again, and I looked forward to the day when we had androids so that I could have a good brawl with them if they were insistent in beating me at this game, I remembered something awesome that Jesus said – about another great reversal:
"Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first." (Matt 20:16 MSG)

The great reversal is that we do not get what we deserve. The way in which we were living (wilfully rejecting God) only has one outcome, but Christ redeemed us; he reversed our destiny by taking the consequences of our sin upon himself and gave us a heaven bound hope! We don’t deserve access to God, but He loved us so much that He drew us into His family.

As I thought about this I realised that I will end up in Heaven [because of Christ] rubbing shoulders with the great men and women of faith; people who sacrificed everything, even their lives on occasion, for God – for a greater, more rewarding cause. What is more amazing is that I will have the same privileges as them! Would they complain? Would the martyrs complain being as they gave so much in comparison to me, only to be rewarded the same?
I don’t think so because our focus will be on Christ in all his radiantly holy beauty.

God's kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work. Later, about nine o'clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.
He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o'clock. At five o'clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?'
They said, “Because no one hired us.”
He told them to go to work in his vineyard.
When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, “Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.”
Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, “These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.”
He replied to the one speaking for the rest, “Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn't we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?” (Matt 20:1-15 MSG)

Even though this is the case, don’t sit back. Give yourself fully over to God. Don’t burn out, burn bright; joyfully serve God in the supermarket, school and office as much in church. Become energised in your service because of the Great Reversal.

-Andrew Carey