Day Thirty Seven

Day 37

Sharing my Life Message

Romans 12:11 “Never let my Zeal Lag”

It’s one of my favorite things to do. Talking about my life. It is one thing I know best in life. It is a miracle I can still remember it all too. Not because it was so long ago, but the fact of all the so called damage that has been done, the drugs that I have done, the damage to my brain they say comes with the brain cells they say I have killed every time I have shot up, the metal disease they have diagnosed me with, the many trips to the psychiatric hospitals and the amount of medications I have taken over the years must have had some effect on my memory you would think. But it is amazing the amount of information in detail I can recall at any given moment when a situation presents itself. Especially from childhood everything I can recall when my parents say “I don’t remember that.” Why is it that parents conveniently forget the most painful parts of their children’s lives when we remember them like they were just yesterday? I never understood that.

But one thing I do understand is, listening to a testimony that comes from the heart of someone that has experienced the touch of God in their life is so moving to me. It is all I ever wanted to be able to do. I have mentioned before about a man that gave his testimony to a group of Jr. High school kids when I was twenty years old I was teaching that moved me in such a way that I prayed to God that I wanted a testimony just like his so I could someday do what he was doing. That is all I ever wanted to do with my life, move people in such a way that my life made a difference in them to feel the power of God with the words that were coming out of my mouth. As I grew up I found that I did have the ability to move people with the words I spoke with. Even when I wasn’t speaking about God, no matter what I was trying to say, I was always convincing. I was always able to get people to listen to me, to get what I wanted just from speaking to them. My manipulating skills took me far in life. Some for the good of me and some for the not so good for me. Either way my words and speaking ability always seem to get me through in life.

Now that I have a subject that I am proud of, a testimony that I am comfortable with, a character I am no longer ashamed of, I am ready to let God use me to share the Power of His saving grace known to the world around me just how He has transformed me from the man I used to be to the man I have become. For me it isn’t difficult to get a conversation started. I am in a very unique situation where ever I go. And if I take along my pets with me that makes it all the more easier. You see due to my medical situation I have been left to depend on a wheelchair and usually if I am out alone, I am carrying a 9 year old Iguana with me. So she gets the attention first, then somehow after the conversation get comfortable and more on a friendly basis, I usually will get asked why I am in or need a wheelchair. That is the only question I wait for. That is my open door. If I was just another man with a Lizard, we would talk about them. If I was just a 47 year old man in a wheelchair, who would come up and just start a conversation with me just for the heck of it? But given my personality and my gift for conversation, my young spirit, my love for people and a conversation piece on my lap, one that is gentle enough to attract the smallest of visitors, I can enjoy a day out and have a chance to share with almost everyone I meet. It was the streets where I used to use and look for things that got me into trouble. So it is no wonder that is where God has me back at sharing my testimony. The same places where the enemy used me to fail at so many things is where I am being used by God to bring him the Glory he deserves.

The bible says we are all supposed to be actively sharing our faith with those around us. But I wonder if we all are taking this task He has given us as seriously as He has commanded us to. How many people do we see every day that we just walk or pass by and have never even mentioned to them we are a Christian? How many even know that we go to church? Or that we believe in a God at all? A lot of people like to keep their lives so private but being a Christian should be the least private part of our lives. We in America don’t have to worry about persecution for what we believe. We can shout it from the roof if we want to. People stand in the middle of the street and do it all the time. But we don’t have to go to that extreme. All we need to do is be ready when an opportunity presents itself. If God knows our hearts and knows that we want to do this, He will bring the opportunities to us. God loves a willing spirit and an obedient soul. This He can use all the time no matter where we are in our walk with Him.

Remember we all have a story to tell, we all came from somewhere before we knew God. Something happened to allow us to get to know and chose Him. We all had and still have a growth process that is full of ups and downs and experiences that have tried our faith and have taught us lessons that will strengthen and encourage someone else. Whether you have almost lost your life and been saved from losing it or whether God has kept you safe your whole life, you have a testimony that is all yours. And God will bring just the right kind of people that need to hear YOUR TESTIMONY so that your life will have a purpose to it and a meaning that will be worth something to someone else. So always be ready to give an account as to what God as done in your life. Someone NEEDS to know what He has done for YOU.

Day Thirty Six

Day 36

Made for a Mission

“The best use of your Life is to spend it on something that outlasts it”

One day a young boy set out for school but never arrived. The school called to see where he was and why he wasn’t in school that day; His father said he had left at his regular time as he did every day. Worried what happened to his son, he got in his car and began to drive the route his son walked to see if he could find him but he wasn’t anywhere to be found? He called the police and they set up a search party and soon the whole town was looking for his son. They would not stop until the lost boy was found again. The father never gave up hope that his son would soon be with him again. He knew that his neighbors would not stop until his son was found because they also loved him and his son.

So it is the same with God and us. Unbelievers are like the lost son in the story above. And all our neighbors are all the Christians in the world who God has called to help Him find all the sons that are lost in the world because God is frantically looking to get them back to Him. God needs our help in finding them. This is all God is concerned about as He sits up in heaven, working in our lives to get us to a place where we can be instruments of His purpose to fulfill His purpose in us, to make us more like His son Jesus so we can do what His son Jesus did while He was here on earth. Each one of us individually He is shaping and molding to become more and more into the character of His son, one day at a time, one feeling at a time, restoring us from one hurt at a time, one broken relationship at a time, so we can be used in one ministry at a time. He has given us each talents and abilities to be used in specific ways, placed us in specific locations and places that are needed so we can be near the right individuals He wants us to reach because it is only us that can that reach these individuals. When God brings certain people into our lives, it is for a reason and for His purpose. There is always a reason why they are there. They just didn’t show up out of the blue. God brought them there. You are not in line behind them by accident. They are not your neighbors because the manager rented them the apartment next to you. They are not your co-workers because someone else hired them. When we understand this, that God has the control and does the behind the scenes work for us, we realize that half the work is already done for us, and we just need to finish what He has already started for us. It is like a salesman walking in a place that has already been primed ready to buy something; they are just waiting for the guy to come in with the product. They may not say YES right away, but eventually they will bite. You may just need to sharpen you salesmanship skills a little, find what works for you.

How do you develop this desire to reach those around you? Pray, always pray first. Second you need to have a love for people. A strong desire to care about the people that God puts in your life daily. To be able to have genuine concern for those around you and see them not only as just people in your life but as people that you want to spend eternity with. I heard a saying once that I think really applies well to the motivation and desire in people to be able to share their lives with others. “Those who have been forgiven little love little, and those who have been forgiven much, love much”. Now this isn’t always true is all circumstances because I know many people who have lived wonderful lives that have great big hearts for people. But I have also seen people who have lived very hard lives, that have gone through very many difficult times, have had many things to overcome, me included, that because of these hurdles to overcome have developed a greater love for mankind than the one they started out life with in the first place. God through their experiences has taught them how to love the unlovable whereas a lot of people just don’t know how to approach or reach them. We, I were these people at one time in our lives.

It takes a long time, and sometimes people never get to a place in their lives where they realize that reaching the world around them up and above and beyond their everyday jobs and responsibilities is what they were created to do. Between taking care of their families, going to work, paying the bills, spending a few hours in church on Sunday, who has time for much anything else? Maybe we should leave it all up to the single people. They must have more time on their hands right? Jesus was single anyway. Be more like Jesus the bible says. And go out and get twelve good friends to follow you around to lend you a hand with what ever you need done. Run your errands and wash your feet and hair. Fix your meals for you then you will have time. Ok maybe this is the wrong way to go about it, it would be nice but it isn’t reality. God gave all of us a personality to use in someway that will and can affect others in a different way so that we can be used to share our own lives and experiences with others. God has given us all experiences to be used that will reach others in some way. It is up to us to share them. To stay silent is the crime. To not tell others what God did in our lives is hiding His truths.

Someone in my life right now grew up with someone putting a lot of bad feelings and bad teachings towards the bible in his mind. He really doesn’t trust the bible as having any truths in it for the moment. How to get him to a place to trust in anything it says is going to be a challenge for me. So what I have asked him to do for the moment is just rely on what he sees in me. (this really puts a pressure on me doesn’t it?) Let me be the example of what you believe someone that believes in Christ is. Instead of me showing you what it means to be a Christian is by showing it to you in the bible, watch my life everyday, you are living with me. See how I treat you. See how I have treated you. See how I treat those around me. Watch how I live my life and compare it to how you know others that you have seen live theirs. Then every once in a while I will open up the bible and show you something that goes along with what I am doing or saying and see if it doesn’t match up with something you are seeing me doing or living. Maybe this will be a way to reach him and get him to understand that what he has heard or read or been taught in the past maybe wasn’t the right thing in the first place. Before we can preach the word of God we have to live the word of God. And we can’t live the word of God if the word of God isn’t in us.

Day Thirty Five

Day 35

God’s Power in my Weakness

The Four “F” Words in my Life

Failures, Feelings, Frustrations and Fears, we all have them but nobody is talking about them. I wonder why not? That would just be too much to bear. If people knew what was inside of us, how could we walk out the front door of our homes and face the world in public? Who we are to others instead is just someone that everyone thinks we are. If they really knew what was inside of us, if they really knew who we were, what make us tick, would they still accept us? Would they still sit beside us in church and say they were our friends? So to be sure, we keep quiet about our true selves and go on pretending without ever telling anyone those little secrets we have grown up with all our lives. Mostly because we don’t want to look at them ourselves, they even scare us sometimes. We don’t want to admit we have feelings like that. How could we, we are Christian’s and God didn’t make people with stuff like that in them. Didn’t Jesus die on the cross to take all that stuff away and redeem us, to heal us and restore us? Wasn’t all the bad stuff in us supposed to go away when we accepted Him? When we prayed to Him to remove something wasn’t He supposed to answer us and give us the desires of our hearts like the bible says? Please Lord remove in me anything that doesn’t line up with your will in my life. That sounds like that right thing to pray for doesn’t it, but what about when it doesn’t seem to go away? What if it just continues to linger for the rest of you life? Is this what Paul was talking about when he said he had a THORN in his side? Something that reminded him that he always had a reason to have a need for the Lord in his life? Something that made him always realize that he was human and that he always needed to constantly rely on the Lord every minute of his life.

Well the same is true for this servant of God. Nine months before I was even born my mother began taking me to church. She was the spiritual leader in the home I was raised in. Everything I learned about what it meant to be a Christian I learned from my mother and my grandmother. At the age of nine I went forward willingly on my own with excitement down that long isle in church to secure my salvation for eternity. The enemy must have known soon after that what a man of God I would become some day as much as my Father in heaven did because it wasn’t long after that long run down the isle that he started messing with my mind and my head in so many ways. Nightmares and dreams and hallucinations after I woke up from those nightmares began to torment me every night. I was afraid to go to sleep at night. Monsters in my dreams with devils in them that were always just one step behind me coming after me. Fear of my dreams, fear of my father, and fear of my classmates at school. Fear seemed to run my life as a child. No place in my life seemed safe. Puberty came at an early age for me in a way that I didn’t understand and I became confused about who I was and what to do with those feelings. I was again fearful to speak up to anyone for the simple reason that I would be punished for doing something bad again. So I just kept quite about what was going on inside of me. So now instead of being afraid of everything outside of myself, I was now afraid of myself and the things that were inside of myself, something that I didn’t understand about myself. I thought that something inside of me was broken. Something in my head, something in my body, and something in the things I was thinking doing with both. I was too young to even know what the word gay or homosexuality was at that time. But I knew something wasn’t right at the same time. And I also knew that I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Especially my father or my mother because she would talk to my father, she told him everything. I was left all alone with all this stuff. Already I was asking questions to God like “Why me Lord, what did I do to deserve this? Am I going to have to live with these feelings all my life? Why can’t I just be normal like everyone else?” These were difficult questions for a twelve year old to have to deal with and to suffer with at that age. While every other twelve year old is just concerned about playing with his friends, I was worried about hiding and keeping secrets about myself and feeling depressed over things I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why God wasn’t answering my prayers or even if He was listening to me. I prayed everyday for an answer but none ever came. I couldn’t see why He was being so silent. I begged and pleaded every night, I prayed for forgiveness for my thoughts and feelings, I asked God to take away the evil that must be inside me, and at times I just wanted to die to make the madness go away. Imagine a twelve or thirteen year old boy wishing he were dead because he didn’t want to live with the feelings in his own mind. I remember how weak and insecure these feelings made me feel all the time. As my teen years went on, these feeling seemed to consume me more and more. My high school years seemed to become one lie after another. My grades suffered, my attendance suffered, I learned how to forge my counselors signature on re-admits very well after every time I ditched classes. The only distraction I found was my involvement with the children’s department at my church. Actually I think it was a way for me to re-live my own childhood again in a safe environment. It was the first time in my life I was receiving recognition for a job well done for doing something right and good for someone else. I enjoyed seeing the happiness on the faces of the kids that I never felt as a child growing up, and knowing that I was a part of that happiness for them made me feel proud that I could be a part of it. Also the praise I received from their parents was something I never seemed to get in my own home growing up. I had found a place to get what I had never gotten before. This helped in so many ways to subdue the thoughts that haunted me so strongly through those teenage years.

Remember I said I hadn’t even seen the word gay written anywhere before? Or even seen it mentioned other than used in a joke on the playground? Coincidently shortly after I heard a guest speaker give his testimony one day in the Jr. Hi department, and I prayed a prayer that I wanted a testimony like that man where I wanted the same testimony as he had that God would give me one where HE would save my life over and over again, I saw that word printed in a newspaper that read GAY HOTLINE and a phone number. At first, to me a hotline meant trouble, and why would someone that was gay be in trouble? I could think of many reasons. It took a couple of weeks for me to get up the courage to call the hotline to see what it was all about. When I did, this was the beginning of the end, so to speak. It was the beginning of a change in the direction of my life in a drastic way. It was as if as soon as I prayed that prayer for God to give me a testimony, the course of my life completely changed all of a sudden. Soon after I was leaving church, my family and friends for a future of confusion, mystery, and unknown experiences that would leave me in a world that I never knew existed. My testimony soon began to take shape, from one life threatening experience after another, from one mishap to another. Was this what God had planned for my life after all? Why would he allow all this to happen to me I wondered. Did He think I was some kind of super hero that could withstand so much pain and agony to come out on top like I have now? And not just me but especially people like my mom and the rest of my family that had to watch and go through so much with me over the past twenty some years. How strong did He think they were to suffer right along with me? It was bad enough being labeled the BAD KID growing up as a child, but now I was really living up to that label as an adult with my addictions, my arrests, my trips to the many rehabs, and psychiatric hospitals for the paranoid delusions I would inflict on myself from my drug use. Over and over again I would ask WHY? Why was all of this happening to me? I had forgot about that prayer I prayed for a testimony where I wanted to be able to sit in front of a large crowd of kids and or people and tell them the story of how GOD saved my life over and over again. Well in order to do that He had to actually save my life over and over again didn’t He? Through all my fears, through all my failures, and through all my frustrations, God has never been out of the picture. I never understood all those stories in the bible growing up and how they could possibly have any meaning for me but now I see they are as relevant today as they were when they were written and lived back then. The Egyptians wandered aimlessly for forty years, so did I. The enemy messed with JOB trying to discourage him, he did also with me. Job prayed for death to befall him. I did too. He also cursed the day he was given life, so did I at times. Paul had his thorn. So will I for the rest of my life. It keeps me dependant on Christ every day of my life. It lets me know I need Him every day of my life. What once was a weakness that I always gave into is now a reminder that I need Him more and more every minute of every day. Through all my pain and suffering has come strength and courage that I never knew I had before. He has led me to a place in life where I can develop my faith and strengthen my soul with a body of believers that I can share with intimately. The wilderness I wandered in was not in vein by no means, the experiences I have had and come through are now my purpose He has developed in me to be able to give back to others. It has taught me the true meaning of the word LOVE and COMPASSION in a way few ever get to experience.

Day Thirty Four

Day 34

Thinking like a Servant

Is this too much to do?

A life of service to others, why would anyone want to do that? Everything our society tells us is to have the things we want for ourselves. Fast cars, big houses, fine women, the hottest men, get rich quick schemes, almost everything the world has to offer us is obtainable if we just set our minds to it. All we have to do is work hard, put all our effort into it, and strive for the best in life. You can even hear some preachers preach this from the pulpit. Twist and turn the scripture enough times and you can get almost anything out of it you want. The FLDS are very good at this. What can be done to lose this mindset and develop a mindset of Christ that puts people first and ourselves second? How do we get to a point in life where others are more important than ourselves? It doesn’t just happen one day all at once. You don’t just wake up with the desire to go out and give it all away. I do believe that God’s plan for a persons life starts very early in life, obviously. Where he allows us to go, what he allows us to experience, the time it takes us to make the mistakes and learn the lessons He teaches us.

Today I had the opportunity to speak with an eighteen year old that was very mature for his age, It was a meeting set up by God I have no doubt. I once asked God to give me a testimony like a man I was listening to that had a very hard life of crime and punishment. I wanted a testimony like this man, not so much the crime and punishment part but the idea of being saved by God for the purposes of being able to testify to God’s saving power in my own life to a large crowd of people, in this case a large crown of teenagers. Today I realized something. Whether it is a large crowd or one at a time, my testimony is one that God has given me to share with who ever asks the questioned, WHAT HAPPENED TO ME? I used to be so embarrassed to even leave my home in a wheelchair. I didn’t want to be seen as a crippled. I don’t see that anymore. I don’t see myself as someone who is DISABLED anymore, but someone who is ENABLED to do everything the Lord wants of me to do. I am not the shy guy, afraid of my own skin, afraid of what others will think of me when they see me. What is it I am doing when I share with someone my life and my story? I am serving God and giving them a message that can show them that God has so much power to do exactly what He as always said He could do, take a life and change it into something great. Heal and restore the broken hearted. The ability to describe what it was like that brings young men to tears, and then calm them with words that softens their heart to be receptive to Gods love. I never mean to bring them to tears but it just happens more times than not. I don’t even think it is me as much as it is the Holy Spirit reaching deep down into their soul and grabbing a hold of them.

Having a ministry of a servant, doing the work of a servant where ever it is needed just because something needs to be done probably doesn’t come naturally to most people. I am sure most women will tell you this when I comes to the housework and trying to get their husbands to lend a hand with it. How can a man be such a great servant at church but such a lousy help around the house? I am sure many women would love an answer to this question. Some people have more time than others this is true. I on the hand, have lots of time being single, not having a regular job to go to, my time is pretty much my own and can give a lot of it when ever it is needed or called upon. Sometimes I want to take on too much because I think that if there is a need before me it must be mine to fill or take care of. As in the case this week of the two young homeless men I took in. I just couldn’t see letting two young men that are perfectly able but just in a situation at the moment where they were sleeping on the beach. Most people would just say “I’m sorry to hear that, I’ll pray for you that you find a place” but yet I take it as God brought them to because I have a place and they are not taking anything out of the way from me. I have a roof over my head, they do not. I have food in my fridge, they do not. They need help finding work, this was my profession. And now one of them has work and the other one is getting work. What if I would have said what everyone else probably would have said and probably not even done to begin with? They would have missed out on the blessing I have been receiving over and over again all this past week.

God never called anyone to be saved and go on their merry way. Imagine if those 120 didn’t go into that upper room and begin to pray. Where would we all be now? No one would have been spreading the GOOD NEWS to no one. Christianity would have just died out like another “HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW FAD” of the 6th century. Even today we see the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormon missionaries walking and pedaling the streets in service to their religion. Whether out of duty or out of true service to their beliefs, they are out there serving diligently while Christians are sitting back saying things like “I don’t have to go to church to be saved” or “I read my bible, sometimes” or “I do what I can when I have the time”. Gee, you go, I bet God can’t wait to get you into Heaven. He will be so happy to get you there after all you have done for him. At least He will be saving a lot on the rewards He will have to be giving out when it comes to your name. So what is it, what does it mean to truly give back to God with our time and our lives to others, to put people first, to put our church’s needs ahead of our own? The body of Christ is a living breathing entity that must be kept alive if it is going to survive and grow and maintain a life of its own in the world today and it takes not a few but all of us together to keep it that way. One of the biggest hearts I have seen is in the janitor in my church. One of the most spiritual men I have seen is the same man. He serves and he is the most unseen and the person I most get excited to see when I do see him. I always wait to hear what he has to say, I sit and listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. His ministry is to have the church prepared for service but his gifts far out weigh his ministry. If everyone served Christ and the body thereof in this manner, there is no telling to what would happen to the church today. But it is as it as always been, only a select few seem to be able to accomplish this level of service of servant hood.

Falling in Love with Jesus Christ, falling in Love with the body of Christ, falling in Love with the idea of serving others means letting go completely of ones self, letting God in to places that we are afraid to to go ourselves. Taking a chance that our own needs will be met only after will begin to look after the needs of others. I am finding through all of this, especially even the past weeks that when I take on the needs of others, when I listen to the voice of God and seeing the needs of others He places before me, my needs are not as important when I am only focusing on myself, and second the needs I do have seem to always be taken care of by the time the needs of others have been met and taken care of. I don’t understand always how it works but it just happens. Some how, some way, all of a sudden the needs I had yesterday or the day before have been taken care of all by themselves while I was doing something for some one else. Or a desire of my heart comes to pass that I just couldn’t ever do on my own but some how it gets met or someone blesses me with something that meets the desire I had in the first place. I think it is because God sees the work we do for others and sees that we have sacrifices ourselves for others and gives back to us because we have sacrificed so much for Him without even putting ourselves first. It is like sowing a seed, do unto others or for others and the same will be done or given unto you or me. This is what GOD wants to do in our lives, bless us for what we do, when we do it with a clean heart and pure motives. Remember, God sees it all, hears it all, and watches over us all. He would never let anything go unseen, Good or Bad.

What can one do to develop this thing called a servants heart? Seek and ye shall find, Ask and it shall be given. Knock and the door shall be open. In other words, PRAY. Ask God to change your spirit. Change your thinking, How can I explain the JOY it brings to see the faces of the people that I minister to every day and what it does to me knowing that I have done something for somebody else? How do I put a feeling into words? Let’s try it this way. How do you feel when you have a need and you know that someone else has gone out of their way to help you meet that need in your life? Grateful they were there and took the time to spend with you. Relieved that the problem you had is now gone. How would you feel knowing that you were someone that was able to do something that helped out another person that was in the same situation you were in once? Do you remember what it was like when you were going through the same thing, now you have an opportunity to return the favor to someone else. God allows us to go through things in our lives not just for our own sake but for the sake of others some day. Every thing we go through is a preparation to be able to understand someone else’s situation later on in life. When we overcome something in our lives, this is how we can know that we are going to be used by GOD to give back to someone else, it is all preparation for our purpose in life, to prepare us to give back what we have learned and grown through. God never wastes a lesson He tried to teach us. It was meant to be passed on to others. It is like the man who hordes money and wealth, You can only obtain so much but people are never satisfied, I love what I obtain every day inside knowing that I am serving a living Savior that blesses me when I put myself last and others first. For so many years I spent my life seeking after everything and anything that I thought would make ME HAPPY. I had no regard for the welfare or the feelings of others. As long as my needs and my happiness were met, that was enough. If you were the object of my desires or the substance of my needs, when I was finished with you, and I had no more need for you, I discarded you. It was a horrible way to treat any human being. But now with my eyes wide open, and looking at other the way Jesus sees all people, knowing that I fit into many of the categories that most people in society shuns every day, I have a better and deeper understanding and more willing desire to be of service to anyone I meet. Most of the time it is just communication and a conversation they desire with another human being, someone to listen to them and take an interest in what they have to say as you pass them by or sit next to them on a bus ride. People need to be noticed and feel like someone sees them. Acknowledge their presence in the world. Is this too much to do?

Day Thirty Three

Day 33

How Real Servants Act

When you first hear the word servant, you usually think of someone that works for a master as someone in a position of service. Someone who attends to the needs of his masters needs and wishes on a daily basis, or maybe a driver or a house servant. Maybe a gardener or grounds keeper. But a Christian servant is much more than any of these. Whether you are a Pastor, a Sunday school teacher, a choir member, a church office worker, or just a pew sitter, we were all called to serve one another. First each other within the body of Christ, then those that are in the world outside of church, those we live with in the world. Our neighbors, those we meet everyday, even those we don’t know but those God brings into our paths that need a helping hand. It takes a certain mindset to put others first and yourself second. To see the needs of others and act without thinking, this doesn’t come naturally for some. It must be developed. Human beings have a natural instinct to take care of themselves first. To meet their own needs and then think of the needs of others, it is sort of how we are raised. “I’ve got mine and I will pray you get yours too” I can hear all the time in the isle ways and the lobbies of the churches I have been in all my life. This is what I mean by a servants heart must be developed. It doesn’t just come with the prayer of salvation. Rick spoke of God giving us special abilities that we can use to either bless other with or if used incorrectly used to even sin with. Or in my case, I used to try to buy the affections of others with. I tried to do for others to get attention from them. I thought that if I did for them they would just automatically return the favors and do right by me back. But not everyone was as nice as I was. So when I came upon others that were let’s say TAKERS and not GIVERS, I learned real quick what resentments were and how to let them grow and how to let my anger get the best of me as I held onto it. As a teenage I enjoy seeing the joy in the faces of the kids I worked with. Being able to be responsible for their happiness brought so much happiness to me. I enjoyed doing for others from an early age. It was something that was a part of me from the beginning. It was later that I learned to be a little more selfish as I grew up, but somewhere deep down I always had the ability to do for others that made me feel better about myself. Even the job that I did so well at was a job of service to others. Finding and place others in work daily so they could have a living was something I was very proud of and very good at. I felt bad the days I had men sitting in the office that I couldn’t get out to work, it was those faces that made me work harder and harder at my sales in the afternoons or on the phones looking for and finding more companies to use them everyday. It wasn’t the money for the owner that I was concerned about, it was the fact that they were in need of money for their families or their rent or their food that day. This was sort of my responsibility I thought. I actually felt bad when I couldn’t get all of them out to work each day. I did everything I could to make sure they would work the next day somewhere. Even though I was the man in charge, the boss of the office and they were my employees, I took it as I was serving them. I was doing them the service of looking for work for them, making sure they all had somewhere to go to work everyday to feed theirs selves and their families. They looked to me to be able to do that everyday. I was serving them not the other way around. This was why I was able to get up and be in the office every morning at five without any problems every day. When you have something you enjoy and even love to do, you don’t think about it being a burden but a joy to be doing. Only God can put this kind of love in your heart. The act of serving others no matter what it is. It is a wonderful gift to have once you have it if you don’t pray to receive it. I think God is willing to hand this one out to everyone since He calls us all to do this. Where ever we go, what ever we do everyday, there are always people to lend a hand to, whether we ask “what can I do for you?” or whether someone asks for a favor, or whether we just see a need that someone has, they are always opportunities to be of service somewhere. Volunteering is an excellent way to be of service when you find you have extra time on your hands. Your church, my church is a great place to volunteer at. They always have a place that has a need. Even keeping the Pastor’s snack closet is a need that must be met. I know, I do it all the time.

Having a servants heart is a quality of Christ that shows others what is truly in your heart. It isn’t something that has to be talked about or publicized, it is just something that can be seen by all and it let’s others know without saying anything that you are someone that has the mind and attitude that Christ is and has made a change in. If others have known you in the past and know you now, they will probably see a great difference in your personality. A difference in who you once were and who you are now, without even saying anything, your acts of service can be your unspoken testimony of the change that Christ has made in your life. This alone will bring others to you and make them ask what is different and what has changed in your life? You never use to be like this. What a compliment this will be. So Stand up for Christ, look for ways to show others who HE is in your life without even saying a word. Lend a hand, be of service to others. Do a favor without expecting anything in return.