A Prayer from my heart this morning. Dear Heavenly Father, it takes everyone with Your guidance to minister as You would desire. Let us not settle for second best and just do things just because some say so. In Jesus' Name, Amen
Not too long ago a very dedicated couple came to me and asked me to pray with them. They had been members of our church for a very long time and in retirement had moved a long way a way. Yet they were struggling trying to drive back to our church to attend. They asked me to pray and to help them see what God was desiring of them. I asked several questions.
1. Why did you move away? The answer was one of not moving because of a changing community, not out of fear or pressure to move, not for financial gain, but because they had retired and the place they moved to was the place they had prepared for this time in their lives many years ago. This they felt was in God's plan.
2. I asked them if God had placed them in our church from the start. Their answer was one of remarkable insight. God had placed them in our church and had called and allowed them to serve in many positions of leadership. They had always been willing servants. They had raised their family here and God had truly blessed.
3. I asked them if God had given them a new direction since He called them to our church. The answer was one I had anticipated. Yes, God had taken away their calling to our church. The desire to stay here was purely for friends and 'what people might say'. Their heart had been moved to a small church in the community to which they were now living. The little church truly needed them and when they had, on occasion, visited this church, their hearts had soared with joy. God had ended their call to the First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove, and had given them a call to serve and be part of the church where they lived.
My advice was to join and serve where GOD leads you to join and serve.
The rest of the story is that this couple are happy and in the midst of serving and enjoying their retirement church. They certainly haven't retired from serving the Lord. He has just moved them to a new field of service.
Now another part of that story is that the places of service in our church that were being held by this wonderful couple were vacant. Some were disturbed that we were losing individuals moving away because of this or that. Our income would suffer and we might as well shut the doors. I wasn't concerned and am still not concerned. I believe and I trust. The body of Christ at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove is complete and will always be complete. What God begins He will complete. After a few weeks an individual came to the front to complete the body of Christ. The places of leadership once vacant have been completed as God leads and you can hardly realize there had been a trimming. That is God's way. We are to depend on Him. We are to watch for His work. God sustains and grow us... not man. Only through man's obedience to God. Doing His work His way.
Everyone in the body of Christ in a local church is important. That is why a church is foolish if not completely wrong when they decide who is to be on the roll and who is not to be on the roll. And the church increased as God added. Not as Mr. Outreach added. Not as the famous Evangelist added...But as God added. We are to realize that when God adds He plants that person for a purpose. We as a God-Centered family must be able to realize that and to react as He desires us to react. Who joined lately and why are they here should be our question. How is God going to bless us with their ministry?
John 17:20-21...
"My prayer is...that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
In Jesus' Care, Always,
Bro. Bob
