“Not so shall it be among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you must be your slave.” Matthew 20:26-27 -> me: I just got back from Virginia on Friday night and I can not tell you how good it is to be home; good to be home on so many fronts. I am thankful for the sacrifice of my family, the providence of God to give me godly men in my spiritual life, the health that I enjoy, and the blessing of a life here on earth I do not deserve. I have been so consumed with work while on the East Coast but I have seen God’s hand moving in my life and others. The Lord provided 2 men, Pastor Jimmy King and MAJ John Morris, who I had the pleasure of sharing in fellowship on our mutual love of our Savior. I have missed my time with my Lord God Almighty and this morning I sit here waiting for Sophie (my 11 year old, who is in her last training class before heading on her missions trip to Santiago, Chile on this coming Friday). I am humbled by His power and faithfulness. My quiet time today was another reinforcement that our goals here on earth should be motivated by our desire to be like Christ in service to others. Not like the world who’s aspiration is Self-Importance, the desire to get noticed and respected, the ambition to make one’s own mark, and impose one’s will upon others. Lord God in heaven, have mercy upon me -> a sinner saved by the ransom Your Son paid to secure my freedom from sin and shame.
QTVOTD: Stop living a checkbox life..
“And behold, there came a man up to Him, saying, Teacher, what excellent and perfectly and essentially good deed must I do to possess eternal life? And He said to him, Why do you ask Me about the perfectly and essentially good? There is only One Who is good [perfectly and essentially]—God. If you would enter into the Life, you must continually keep the commandments.” Matthew 19:16-17 ->me: Hello!!! What a crazy last 3 weeks! From prep for this trip, leaving my family on the 20th, and then 16-18 hour days has been quite the ordeal. Today was the first day of a little downtime since. I have been able to stay in God’s word routinely but have not had time until now to write up my thoughts on a passage. I have been between Matthew (My personal devotions) and 1 Corinthians (our Life Group Study). Today was a great reminder that my relationship with Jesus is not based on a checkbox action of GOOD but being in fellowship with the One Who IS good. I am so thankful for God’s faithfulness and there are issues afoot that He is definitely leading….just don’t know where He is taking me (an adventure!). Please pray that I can continue to stay in His precious word even though you may not hear from me in the text form. This ‘crazy’ ends on the 22nd of this month but God has given me the strength to find it manageable. So GRATEFUL!