FIT TO SERVE

 

 

 

 

Be careful, guard yourself at all times! Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” satan does not always try to get you out of your ministry, your calling or the task of serving, but he will try to remove your purpose in it. The trick of his trade is to disappoint you enough in your task of serving to the point that you either, give up or allow bitterness and frustration to replace the joy that you had when you first put your hand to begin that good work. There is no better servant, than the one who has learned to sit before the Lord, before they ever put their hand to serve Him. While I could give you a dozen examples of that in scripture, I will share only two scenarios concerning two different servants and a little bit of their own personal struggles in learning that obedience is better than sacrifice.

We are quick to forget that upon Jesus’ resurrection, he walked, talked and ate with His disciples confirming His resurrection to them. One afternoon after Peter and some of the disciples had been fishing when Jesus appeared to them on the banks of the river and invited them to come ashore to eat some bread and fish. While they were visiting with Jesus, He asked Peter 3 times, whom he loved. Peter told Jesus three times, Lord, you know I love you. Jesus responded each time to Peter that if he loved him, then he was to feed Jesus’ sheep. You see Jesus ask Peter to confirm his love for him first, then He instructed Peter to work for Him. By this time Peter would have been ready to do the work that Jesus was asking him to do. For Peter had been through his own personal spiritual schooling concerning the love and mercies of God’s forgiveness and His ways. Peter was fit at that point to feed God’s lambs because he himself had experienced the gospel message personally. But, he had made many mistakes before he learned who Christ really was and that whatever Peter would end up doing for Christ, would be learned on the shoulders of failure and forgiveness.

While in the middle of serving the Lord, Martha became frustrated in her work and allowed bitterness to fester in her heart towards her sister who was more interested in heavenly manna at that point than the manna that Martha was serving up in the kitchen. Because Martha jumped into the work and forgot to pause for power, she suffered much grief in her heart. She allowed the devil to rob her of her joy in the midst of her serving. When we choose to serve others spiritual food before we ourselves are prepared to serve it, then we can easily get sidetracked and loose our focus. That simply means that we cannot serve others until we have allowed Christ to serve us by spending time with us and allowing Him to wash our spiritual feet on a regular basis and by guarding our hearts to insure that our motives are in line with God’s will and our love for others is greater than our love for ourselves or any task that we will ever put our hands to do.

Martha’s task was not her problem, her attitude in her task is what brought her rebuke. A tale-tale sign that we are veering off the beaten path in trying to do a thing for God or others is our attitudes towards them. Martha might have had the right attitude when she invited Jesus to dinner, but she allowed satan to change her purpose in what she was doing and got side tracked in her task. If you are serving the Lord, don’t you dare get discouraged, keep it up! But, be sure to soak your attitudes and feelings in the healing waters of His Word, so that you will be fit to serve, in joy; and when you sense a wrong feeling or attitude well up in you in the midst of what you are doing, be sure to surrender that wrong attitude that very moment and when you do, your peace will continue and your work be pure!

Keep Serving the Lord! Don’t you dare give up! Folks need our love and we cannot serve them properly apart from our loving them through His purpose and power!

Loving on you today,

Bren

 

 

TIC OFF THE DEVIL THIS EASTER AND BREAK FREE

I was pondering over the upcoming Easter Sunday and of the stories and devotions that have been and could be written about this momentous occasion. As I was pondering over it, I was reminded of a story that I once read about a young man who had left the old country, to sail to the new America in order to make a new life for himself. Upon his leaving, his father placed a few coins in his hands in hope that it would somehow tide him over until he was able to get a job. His mother had made several sandwiches and placed them along with a few apples in a small basket and gently kissed his cheek as she wished him well in his new life.

The young man purchased his ticket, got on the Ship and set sail. The journey was to be a long one and the young man wanted to go sparingly on his food. The first night he went up on the deck and took one of his sandwiches. He ate silently and watched as the other passengers walked by him and entered the great room that had many dining tables and chairs. He listened to their chatter and laughter and watched through the windows as the servers brought plates of hot steaming food to the people at their tables. As he took bites from his little sandwich, he took comfort in knowing the love that his kind mother had towards him as he smelt and tasted the home aid bread from her own hands. The days went by slowly and the man’s basket of sandwiches and apples slowly diminished and he was left with nothing but a few stale crackers and moldy cheese along with his hunger pains. He had remembered the coins that his father had given him, but soon realized that the food in the dining room would certainly cost more than he had to spare so he resolved to be satisfied with a few stale cracker and a piece of molded cheese.

A few days out of New York’s port almost starving, the man decided to ask the Porter in broken English how much to eat the food in the dining room. The Porter could not understand him so the man pulled out his few meager coins pointed to them and then to the dining room, and in a weak voice once again said, “How Much?”, the Porter understanding at that point said as he closed the man’s hand, “You are free to eat, it cost nothing, the food is included in your passage!”. Many of us live our spiritual lives just as this young man did on his trip. We choose to be spiritual paupers. We feast on stale crackers and molded cheese when we could be enjoying the tasteful morsels at the Master’s table. We are waiting for the day that we feel worthy to sit and dine with the King of Kings, not realizing that the cost of such fellowship was included in the passage that Christ paid on the cross for us and when the veil was torn in the temple and we were allowed to walk straight in to the very throne room of God with the boldness of a King’s child. That dividing wall of hostility was torn down on God’s side. However, there may be some demolition work needed to be done on our part. You see the enemy of our souls is very busy building barriers around us to block the spiritual intimacy that God want us to encounter with Him.

No matter how far God goes to draw man to Himself, the enemy goes just as far in his evil plan to try and persuade or deter them from the Truth. Sadly, mankind boast of wanting to know Truth, yet most of the time they choose to be lied to and be deceived; because for many, God’s ways are hard ways and can only be accomplish through yielding to Him. satan’s ways are easy, “do nothing”, he whispers or better yet, “do it your way”, he pleads! Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift that God offers is eternal life. You must decide for yourself, what you will do with the work that Christ did. If you accept it, then tell God that you do, and turn from your sin by being willing to change, for God will help you do that if you are truly willing. Ask God into your life and be willing to do things His way. Find a Bible believing Church, follow Christ in Baptism which represents what Easter is all about, dying to your sin, rising to a new life in Christ. If we are ashamed of Him to men, He will be ashamed of us before His Father. Tic off the devil today, say no to him, and yes to Christ and be free! Loving you and wishing you the best of this Easter Holiday!

Loving on you today,
Bren

A SIGN OF THE TIMES

We should never appease those who disagree with the gospel by compromising what it says. The gospel is going to offend people; I know this because it has offended me. Yet when I am willing to see truth as God sees it, it no longer is an offense to me but an act of mercy that brings me to see truth as it really is and not the radical hate gospel that satan would have us all believe it to be. The mainstream of Christian teachings for the past 2,000 years has not changed, only our culture has. This change that is taking place in our modern contemporary Christian thought today is radical and unrelenting and is happening because the scripture is once again unfolding before our very eyes, according to 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear”. Christians today are out of step with the growing majority of modern American thought if and when they go against the grain and stand firmly against doctrinal compromise.

I have seen in the past 10 years a rapid change in the world wide cooperate church itself. The scripture is clear, that in the end times there will be a culminating difference of doctrinal variations and you do not have to be a professing Christian to see that happening today. The prophet Daniel predicted thousands of years ago of the coming, of a great falling away of those who claim to be God’s children yet are not, as did John the revelator predict. Both predicted a time when the true believers will be separated from the false believers. God Himself will separate those who know about Christ intellectually, from those who know Christ personally, as their Lord and Savior. For satan himself has an ominous plan perpetuated by the think tankers of hell, seeking to undermine the working of the gospel. The purpose of course is to divert people away from the truth. I read once that the first casualty in the art of spiritual warfare is truth; and that is so true. For if the enemy can change what we think about truth then there is no need to defend it. Since satan was cast from his original position in heaven, his great strategy in trying to destroy the people of God has been by attacking the divinely inspired Word of God. For as he attempts to corrupts the Word of God in the hearts of mankind, it becomes more bearable for them to receive what satan wants man to believe; and once that happens, it’s power no longer has a regenerating effect on mankind, instead it sooths their sinful nature and allows them to remain as they are, “unredeemed flesh”. It is therefore the job of the child of God to be constantly alert of this hellish scheme to change the truth so that it will become watered down to the point that people feel they have no need for it, or they become confused as to what the scriptures really means and the scriptures themselves bear witness in I Cor. 14:33 that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

These days that we are living in, truly are a sign of the times, whether you or I believe that or not! People have tried to stifle, distort and misuse the Word of God throughout the ages, because it cause them discomfort and offends their sin nature. It is the very reason that Herod’s adulteress sister in law Herodias whom he was having an affair with, wanted John the Baptist’s head on a silver platter. Because every time John opened his mouth to confront her that she was doing wrong, it cut her to the core. It was her conviction that enraged the sinful nature that was in her, causing her to desire one thing and that was to remove that which was causing her discomfort and it was not John my friend; but the truth that John was sharing with her. That truth was convicting her of her wrong doing and for that reason alone, she wanted to get rid of John, so that her misery would go away. Everyone wants to hear about the love of God, but they do not want to hear about Him being a righteous judge that deals with man’s wrong doing. Jesus said himself that He came not to condemn but to save, yet He was accused of that very thing, even by the clergy of His day. The only thing that condemns us, is the sin that is in us according to I John 3. Our very heart’s condemn us. For those who say that they are called into a ministry to preach about the love of God, yet refuse to confront sinners of their sin as God’s word instructs all believer’s to do, misrepresent the Word of God. For the Word of God itself says in Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. That simply means that it is sharp enough to cut deep into the marrow of man’s degenerated hearts to convict, reprove and to save them; if they will turn to God through that conviction.

The scripture ask us in Romans 10:15, how will people know unless we tell them. For this very reason God raises up prophets to go and to speak forth the truth to people in order that they may be saved, because not all are willing to be the bearer of such great a news. People cannot be saved a part from their understanding why they are lost. Often times when people hear the Word of God it stirs their heart and compels them as did King Agrippa’s heart in Act 26 when the Apostle Paul had almost persuaded him to receive the gospel message. You see the Jewish king, Agrippa knew the promises made in the Old Testament that a Savior would come, and could clearly see that Jesus was that Savior. That conviction led him to say to Paul, "Almost thou persuaded me to be a Christian." yet he loved sin more than his willingness to see things in light of the truth, which proves John 3:19 to be truth, that the Light has come into the world and the children of men loved darkness more than light. Agrippa like so very many others, allowed satan to take away what truth that was planted in his heart, by Paul placing it there. The church will never conquer the whole world for Christ, but if we stand God’s ground and not wavier in spreading the truth no matter the cost to us, we will be able to spread the gospel so that it may be offered to the world, and yes, even to those who will reject it! Let us keep striving to make Him proud of us and may we never stop showing love and compassion no matter what the signs of the days may bring or what man may say or do to us!

Loving you today sweet friend,
Bren