What’s on my heart today? Service and cheerful giving. Our church is doing the five practices of a fruitful congregation and we are currently studying “Extravagant Generosity”. It’s not all about money, although giving our money is important, but it’s also about time. So, in a church (probably like many others) which needs volunteers to do routine tasks as a minimum, but more importantly evangelists and risk takers who are willing to go out and harvest, how come we struggle so much?
I think that too many people are in a routine and feel that they cannot break out of it. People work, have families to look after, homes to manage and sometimes Church and serving seems to be that extra pressure for them. But what if we put God first in everything? What if instead of saying we don’t have time we said, God help me to rearrange my schedule to free up time. What if we said, God, show me what I can let go of, God show me where I am wasting my time and not bringing you honour. What if we said, show me if where I am currently serving is right for me, open doors for me to step into your will for my life? What if we made an appointment with God on a weekly basis and kept it the same way we would a work appointment, using that time to seek his vision for our lives?
Look around your church. Where can you bring your skills, who can you support, who needs an encouraging word, what more can you do?
There is so much to be done, as Matthew says:
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
That is my prayer for my church and for others today.
CHEERFUL GIVING
Serve one another, open your eyes to what’s happening around us, communities that need Jesus, people are lost but they’re seeking answers, drug and alcohol addiction surround us, the homeless are lying in shop doorways, do we glance their way, sometimes, always? Fortune tellers are plying their trade, others are craving fame and then there’s the ones seeking their fortune, lottery, scratch cards, betting shops, bingo, all because of the hole in their lives, a void that can never be filled with drink or pills, a lack of happiness because money just cannot buy what these people need, we are commissioned to set them free, what’s more important than giving freely of our talents and time, we’re only here for a short while, our assignment temporary yet exceedingly necessary, do we give generously, are we cheerful givers, responsible guardians of our talents, are we ready and willing to seek out the harvest?
#newchristian 