Category: Service

God Calls The Available

On By Ed AlgreenIn Service, SurrenderLeave a comment

The Holy Bible

7 By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News. 8 Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.

(Bible Translation and Location: New Living Translation – Ephesians 3:7-8)

Thoughts:

Paul is reminding us that as long as we make ourselves available to God and are willing to be used of God, then much like He did through Paul, He can also do through us. Friends, Paul is one of the largest contributors to the New Testament and he probably started more churches in his day than anyone else that we have record of in the Bible. So you might ask, why would God have used an unqualified person amidst so many others that were probably smarter and better prepared to handle the ministries that Paul faced. I believe the answer melds with sound doctrine, and is very applicable for the excuses that many of us lay persons come up with today. In using Paul, the power of God was very evident! Not only in the sermons he preached, or the miracles wrought through his ministry, but in his determination to minister successfully even in the jails, as he did to the Philippian Jailer. So what might God be saying to us through this passage? I feel like God is encouraging us to stand tall for Him, and be willing to step up to the plate when God lays a ministry on our mind. He is probably laying it on your mind so that you might become involved and, through total dependence on Him, see the lost receive hope and a new life in Jesus Christ. Please don’t refer a person to your church when God has placed them in your path. Become personally involved. Help them, even if the help ultimately comes from the church. You may have opportunity to minister to their personal and godly needs. Imagine for a moment if Paul would have said ‘No’ to God, the number of people who may not have been saved in that day! Imagine if Mary would have said ‘No’ to God when told that she would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit? Imagine the folk that might die and go to Hell, unless you are obedient to the Holy Spirit and do His perfect will with His awesome power and support?

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, please forgive us for ‘passing the buck’ so often instead of being obedient to Your commands! How dare us be disobedient in that way. How dare us pass ‘the baton’ to someone else who You never intended to do the job given to us. How dare us pass the joy intended for us on to someone else. Lord, we are weak, but thank God You are strong! Thank You for working with us and prodding us along to be the children You intended us to be. Please don’t give up on us! Please continue to work on us so that we may learn to follow Your will and Your instructions as intended. Please help us to have hearts of mercy, that desire to see those that come into our realm of influence, come to know You in a very personal and committed way. Lord, You are good and Your mercies endureth forever! Thank You for choosing me to be Your child, and for using me in any way You see fit to grow Your kingdom here on earth. Please endow readers of this devotional with this same power and a strong desire to serve You in any way You desire through them. I ask all this in the worthy and precious name of Jesus, my Lord, AMEN!

FOOTNOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!

Nothing We Say Overrides The Power of the Cross

On By Ed AlgreenIn Bible Believing, Chosen by God, Christian, Encourage, Evangelism, Faith, Helper, Holy Spirit, Power, Power of Prayer, Praise, Servants of God, Service, StregthLeave a comment

The Bible – The Amplified Bible

1 Corinthians 1:17–19

17 For Christ (the Messiah) sent me out not to baptize but [to evangelize by] preaching the glad tidings (the Gospel), and that not with verbal eloquence, lest the cross of Christ should be deprived of force and emptied of its power and rendered vain (fruitless, void of value, and of no effect).

18 For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.

19 For it is written, I will baffle and render useless and destroy the learning of the learned and the philosophy of the philosophers and the cleverness of the clever and the discernment of the discerning; I will frustrate and nullify [them] and bring [them] to nothing. [Isa. 29:14.]

Thoughts:

Thank God for seminaries and dedicated theologians who teach and counsel our pastors. But I am most thankful for the intervention of the God of this universe sending His Holy Spirit to dwell among men and to impact our lives daily. I am amazed how God is able to use the uneducated and especially those having graduated from seminary. As I said, I am thankful for our seminaries, so I have nothing against them, but a person filled with head knowledge but who refuses to call on God for help in delivering His message is totally missing the point, and therefore much of their preaching is in vain. Friends, I know that all seminary graduates do not fall into the same box, so I am not condemning them. However, we must all remember that the Word of God is worthless without the power of God and the presence of God. For without God, we speak mere words of man, and it is only through the Word of God and His mighty hand that man is saved, or hardened hearts are touched. In fact, when we stand before a crowd and attempt to preach or teach without inviting God to direct us and fill us with His words and His wisdom, we are assuming that our knowledge is greater than the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. Friends, we are truly wasting our time and making a mockery of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we meet (supposedly in His name) yet deliberately leave Him out of our meeting and not totally depend on His mighty hand. To our pastors, preachers, evangelists and teachers, please be encouraged that you can’t do the preaching or teaching on your own. Yes, you are capable, but why open your mouths and speak empty words that can’t possibly touch the heart of man? Please allow God His rightful place as Commander-In-Chief of worship services dedicated to Him. Please allow Him to use you in spreading His Word to His people that need Him so badly. Friends, we have a responsibility to pray for our pastors and teachers. We need a word from The Lord when we go to our worship services. Words from mere man is a waste of our time, so let us pray earnestly for the hand of God to work actively through the man of God that stands before us each week. God could demand even the stones to speak, so as we pray let us do it in confidence that He could speak through His messenger in ways and with the words that will touch, uplift, encourage and challenge our hearts.

Prayer:

Lord, to mere man this whole passage of Scripture must seem very fictional, but to the believer in Jesus Christ who knows Your power and have read about and seen your mighty works in action, we humbly pray that You would work very powerfully in the hearts and lives of our pastors and teachers this week, so that as we gather in Your name, we would receive a word from You. Please humble the hearts of the educated, and please uplift the uneducated, so that as they stand before your people this week, they will each depend solely on the power of the Almighty to do His good work among His people gathered together. Lord, as we strive daily to live for You and like You intended, we are constantly marred by Satan and his evil followers in this world. Please forgive us for our weaknesses and encourage us to draw even closer to You so the power within us might always be greater than the power in this old world. Jesus, we depend heavily on You daily, please forgive us of our sinful attitudes and desires and strengthen us to do Your will, and this I humbly pray in Your name, knowing that only You can grant this, AMEN!

 

NOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray.

Strength is for service, not status

On By Ed AlgreenIn Bible Believing, Christian, Encourage, Follow Jesus, Helper, Holy Spirit, Humility, Imitator of Christ, Love, Love your Neighbor, Obedience, Pleasing to God, Service, Status, StregthLeave a comment

The Bible – The Message

Romans 15:1-6

1-2             Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”

3–6           That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it.

Thoughts:

Our reaction to someone’s problems is that we normally feel very sorry for them, followed by: “we will pray for you”. Personally I am very guilty of forgetting that promise as soon as I am out of the person’s presence. Not intentionally, but often because I feel like this is my Christian responsibility to tell them that I will pray for them. But it is very unfortunate that I have taken this serious responsibility so very lightly, especially when my mentor, Jesus, cared for people so much that He didn’t worry about food for himself, but for the 5,000 that had followed Him. It gets even worse, because people will share their worry with us about them not having food to eat or money for the electric or clothing for their school kids, and so often we say how sorry we are to hear that, or perhaps that we will tell our pastor about their problem. Sometimes, that’s the most that some of us can do at the time, but often it is because we do our best to shrug the problem off and leave it for the leaders of our church to handle, since that’s what they are getting paid for! Friends, I believe that God places us in a situation that requires our help, not to simply pass the buck, but to follow through and do our part. It might be a growing experience for us! Let’s remember that we are a Christian not just for the status in our family, workplace and community, but we are to follow the example of our Lord and Savior and serve others as given the opportunity. Can you do more in this respect? I know I can, God being my helper!

Prayer:

Father, often we look at other ‘Christians’ and look down our proud noses and say how sorry we are for them and their circumstances. I am sorry for the times that I have fit into that mold dear Jesus, but I must say that I am not proud of that, and I want to dedicate my life to being a true example of You in every way. I know that this will sometime lead to certain things not pleasing to self, but it’s You I live for Jesus and You that I want to please and follow. Please help me to be Your hands and feet on the ground, so help me to characterize You in every way throughout my life. I believe that many of my Christian friends fit into the same mold as I do dear Lord, so I ask that you shower Your wisdom and Your power on their lives today as well, so that together, we may be Your church – your bride. Lord Jesus, I ask all this in Your name and for Your glory, Amen!

 

NOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray.