By Derl G. Keefer
Your Best Gift has a purpose! Service. (v.4-7).
Service with a focus — Jesus.
Service with a personal Testimony. We cannot have a second hand knowledge, but a first hand experience.
Service with a heart — Compassion.
William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
wrote, "They (servants) point beyond themselves to One who is at once
the pattern and the object of our faith, and bid us run the race that
is set before us, looking unto Jesus . . . I come as a learner, with
no policy to advocate, no plan already formed to follow. But I come
with one burning desire; it is that in all our activities sacred and
secular, ecclesiastical and social, we should help each other to fix
our eyes on Jesus, making him our only guide . . . pray for me
chiefly that I may never let go of the unseen hand of the Lord Jesus
and may live in daily fellowship with him. It is so that you will
most of all help me to help you. So shall we go forward together —
not without stumbling, not without weariness — but always toward the
loving welcome that awaits us in our Father's home." 1
Advertisement
Your Best Gift Gives a Great Satisfaction! Usefulness. (8-12).
Your usefulness draws the hurting and needy to God.
Your usefulness draws the lost to a God offering eternity to anyone.
Your usefulness draws people to camaraderie whose boundaries are endless!
Your usefulness draws YOU closer to God!
Someone wrote, "Almighty and eternal God, so draw
my heart to You, so guide my mind, so fill my imagination, so control
my will, that I may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you; and
then use me, I pray, as you will, and always to your glory, and the
welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen." 2
Your free gift is waiting to be opened!
--------------
1 Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), 354.
2 Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight (New York: Penguin Group, 2001), n.p.number.
__________
Sermon brief provided by Derl G. Keefer, Adult Ministries
Coordinator, Church of the Nazarene, Kansas City, MO