Tag Archives: serving God

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Finishing the Race

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DON’T LET ANYTHING STAND IN THE WAY

“I met with my pastor today and I told him I want you and Elaine to sing at my memorial service.”

My eyes filled with tears as I realized Sally knew her time here was coming to an end.

“I am deeply honored that you would ask me, ” I choked out.

This was the woman who had visited me 24 years ago right before my mastectomy to encourage me that cancer was not a death sentence. Sally had experienced a mastectomy and chemotherapy just the year before and became a volunteer with Reach for Recovery.

Sally was also an operating room nurse and the next week as I was rolled into surgery, Sally was one of the nurses on duty. She asked if she could pray with me and I replied, ” please do”. Sally prayed that I would be calm and sense God’s love as I went through surgery. The last thing I remember is thinking that when the surgeon made the incision love would pour out because I was so filled with God’s love through the prayers of Sally and many precious friends and family.

That was 24 years ago and after two more battles with cancer, Sally went on to be with the Lord.

“I don’t want anyone wearing black and being mournful,” Sally told Elaine. “I want the service to be a time of worship and blessing because I will be with Jesus.”

It was that indeed!

Sally’s memorial was a celebration of a life that radiated the love of Jesus everywhere she went. Sally had touched so many lives in so many varied ways through her ministry as a nurse, her singing and playing the guitar at nursing homes, her participation in the Community Orchestra playing the flute, playing tennis and bridge, and many hours of service through the churches she attended over the years. Sally was a talented woman and was so generous in using those talents for the Lord.

I am blessed to have been in a Home Group with Sally for the past several years. Her late husband, Arden, and she were committed members of our Home Group and they loved to worship and pray together before he died.

Sally continued to participate and she loved to worship and pray for her children and grandchildren. We prayed for healing for Sally and she expressed her faith in God as her healer – always confirming her trust in God’s will.

I will never forget watching Sally as her physical condition worsened, she remained strong in faith and Spirit. She confessed that God was faithful and that she was ready to go to meet Him when it was her appointed time. As a nurse, Sally knew the medical implications of what she was facing, yet she also know God was in control.

Last weekend I was watching our grandsons play outside and noticed how the youngest one tries to keep up with his bigger brothers. If there is an obstacle in the way – he climbs it.  He doesn’t want anything to stop him from being right there with his big brothers.

Isn’t that the way we should be with God? We must not let anything – cancer, separation, heartache, even a loved one’s death stand in the way of following Jesus – the author and finisher of our faith. Sally was like that  – cancer did not separate her from God’s love. Paul says something about this to Timothy when Paul realizes he is near death.

2 Timothy 4:6-8  (NLT)

6 As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near.

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.

8 And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.

Sally fought the good fight.

Sally finished her race.

 

 

 

 

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Serve Him 2014 – #3

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“You are pregnant!”

Do those words strike fear in your heart?
Are they a long desired and anxiously awaited announcement?
Is your first thought…”No way…not me”?

Let’s look at a record of the most famous pregnancy in all of history – Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Mary found out about her pregnancy from an angel. That was quite an annoucement!

Luke 1:26-38

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Her first, and natural response was – this cannot be!
Mary was a virgin. Yet here was this angel telling her she was pregnant, and that the child she bore was to be the Son of God!

Now think about this for a moment. As Christians we want to serve God. We want to have our lives make a difference and count for eternity. Yet, what if Mary had answered God the way we often do when called to serve Him. Our responses often sound like this:

* I’m not good enough.
* I’m not smart enough.
* I’m too busy.
* I’m too afraid.
* I’m tired.

Well, you might say – if an angel came and told me how to serve God – that would be different.

Would it?

Just because an angel announced this birth – this news brought with it some big concerns. Mary had to face
• Telling Joseph
• Telling her mother and friends
• Mothering the Son of God – now that is BIG!

Yet… Luke 1:38 records her response. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

That is how I must respond when I recognize the service God has called me to – I am your servant, may I fullfill your will.

Remember – Service to God is not based on my
• Talents or Abilities
• Preferences
• Education
• Moods

God may use our talents, preferences, education, and even our moods –
BUT the choice is HIS!

Joy in service comes when we can say as Mary did in verses 46 – 49

46 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
Holy is his name.

May we respond as Mary did when He calls us to serve.
May ALL we do be service for God’s honor and glory.

Amen.

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Serve Him 2014 – #2

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Session 3 – Serve with all My Mind

God uses relationships to communicate His Truth – He is a God of relationships. We often think that to serve God we must go to a foreign county, or at least a place that is “poor and needy”. Certainly God calls some of us to serve Him in those situations. God tells us to go into “all the world and preach the gospel.”

My friend Carol and I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois which is 30 miles west of Chicago. Our youth group would have mission trips and we would go to Appalachia to serve God during our spring break. Now we live in Appalachia and youth groups from here go up north to Chicago or New York to serve God.

Why do we think that to truly serve God we must go somewhere else than where we are?

Are there needs close to home? Yes, of course there are.

But it is often harder to meet the needs of those close by, maybe even our neighbors, because they really know us. They know we aren’t perfect, that we have needs of our own.

A woman in the Bible had lost her husband and both her sons when they died while they lived in a foreign land. She was understandingly devastated. Ruth 1 tells this story.

Naomi is a widow, a harsh reality in those times.
Ruth chooses to stay with her mother-in-law, even though her mother-in-law tells her to return to her own people.
Ruth chooses to serve God by serving Naomi – Ruth 1: 16

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Look at the way Ruth serves her mother-in-law.
Ruth –
* forsakes all she is familiar with
* vows to be faithful
* she must have seen something in Naomi that drew her to God
* she does what needs to be done – was it her “gift?”
* she gleans from harvested fields to get enough to eat
* she saves enough for her mother-in-law
* she honors her mother-in-law, Naomi

God is calling us to serve Him by serving others. Those others may be:
• In-laws
• elderly parents
• children
• husbands
• others 

Why are we so often willing to serve OTHERS before serving those closest to us?
Or maybe our challenge is serving those OUTSIDE our family.

The key is – Obedience – Philippians 2:5-11

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

AMEN! – have the same mindset as Christ Jesus!

We are to have mind of Christ – that is a mind that:
• made Himself nothing
• took on the form of a servant
• humbled Himself
• became obedient to death

To serve God I must have the mind of Christ – that of a humble servant.

I must be willing to serve God wherever He desires me to serve – starting right where I am.