We Each Have a Part to Play in Ministering to Others in Our Lives. . .

So a young man from Freedom's Door showed up to sit and chat with me before service started this morning. He is a babe in Christ, only a month old, and he got talking about listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit versus choosing to do his own thing. I shared with him the pull of doing it the world's way, the choices required to do things God's way, and how we should not try to do things God's way on our own strength. I was sharing how God sent the Holy Spirit to come alongside us as our Comforter, how He guides us into all Truth, and that we can ask for wisdom and strength. When I shared how in my own life, I often ask God to go ahead of me into situations and circumstances I am about to face, he wrote the idea down in his Bible.

 

Service began, and the songs chosen all spoke of how holy God is, of how awesome He is, and our response to that awesomeness. A Word of Exhortation came forward from two people in the congregation, exhorting God's people to be wise to the ways of the enemy, to be alert, to understand who God really is versus who people and other religious groups try to say He is, to be aware and to be prepared for worse times to come upon us.

 

The praise and worship set moved into the sermon where Pastor was preaching on freedom with responsibility. He shared how understanding freedom in the spiritual sense to that of switching allgiance from one Lord to another. He used an example from Abraham Lincoln's life when he freed a young female slave who, when she discovered she now had the freedom to do, say, and go wherever she wanted, chose to go with the President. Pastor said so it is with us, that when Christ comes and frees us from the grip of sin and it's payment in eternal separation from God, that in our newfound freedom, we choose to follow Christ and make Him Lord of our lives.

 

Pastor gave a few questions that all related to applying the concepts found in Scripture to every day life. As I read those questions on the screen, I couldn't help thinking of this young man, and also of my daughter who asks "how" questions from time to time in applying her faith to her life.

 

I came home from church totally amazed at the flow of events and instruction from before the service, to the lyrical worship, to the sermon. A Holy God was instructing His people in choosing to follow after Him.

 

It was an amazing time. I pray this young man went back to his room encouraged, exhorted, and challenged to keep on in his newfound faith. It was so awesome to find myself merely part of the morning's message in his life. It truly is amazing what God can do when you allow yourself to be in the right place at the right time.

 

Thank You Lord.