F.E.E.D #4

F.E.E.D #4                                                                                                                  By Pastor Joe

F.E.E.D is an acronym for “Family Emphasis Enrichment and Development. From Mother’s Day through Independence Day Weekend, we will be focusing our sermons on how we can be better parents, a better spouse, a better son or daughter, how we can be more connected to our local fellowship, and many other virtues which should improve as we grow in our faith. A secondary purpose is to remind the congregation the we need to focus inward for a portion of our yearly messages and activities. You often hear the term personal development, F.E.E.D will speak to this growth dynamic, so each of us should be prepared to evaluate where we are in our growth process.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who helped with the first of many, “final pushes” to prepare Assembly Park Camp for this year‘s activities. As we continue our series of messages on “Good Neighbor” my personal challenge is to live up to everything I am asking you to consider. Today’s message is the conclusion of, “What do these stones mean?”(memory stones). This message does speak to all three parts of us, (Body, Soul and Spirit) yet the greatest level of challenge comes in the area of our commitment to doing what the Word says. We can sing, “I surrender all” to Jesus and “Amen” the message this morning, but we need to commit to, and truly mean, those words. A text message sent out on Thursday ended with the Bible verse, Consider the needs of others more important than your own. (I’m paraphrasing).

Eternal memory stones require sacrifice and often not being able to do what we want to do. The struggle is very real for even your pastor who often wants to do what pleases me. This can even be good things! Jesus was often found diverting from his normal routine to minister to others.

Let’s look at our theme Good Neighbor as the Good Samaritan, the two who passed by and didn’t help- they could have possibly been on their way to the synagogue. Personally, there have been moments where I was on my way to a “spiritual event” and I saw someone in need and rather than be the Good Samaritan, my response was more like the Tempel assistant. Without becoming the “song that never ends”….the title of this weekly article is, “Eternal Significance”.

“Pity the man that has no one to pick him up when he falls down”. Right now, I am looking out my parents’ kitchen window and the weather is spectacular, and yes I’m thinking about how I can enjoy a few minutes of this great day. Yet all the time knowing I will be lugging boxes of stuff and emptying the home on Southeast 3rd Street in Willmar. My temporal pleasure of today should never take priority over the eternal significance God wants me to accomplish here and now. Today stands as a testimony to honoring the 5th commandment even though Mom and Dad are in heaven. When selfish desires keep us from fulfilling the call God has placed upon our lives, some serious soul searching needs to take place. More often than not, most Christians in America have over scheduled themselves and loaded themselves down with lots of activities, the end result is they don’t know what to say no to. The normal response is “I’m too busy”.

Let the following verse resonate in your heart this week, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Matthew 6: 19-21 NLT. Wow! this verse and reading it a few times reminds me that the struggle is real!

One last thought, we are all in this together! That’s why our church slogan statement is so important. “Together is better!”. We need each other, now more than ever. We will be spending eternity together, so let’s do our very best to honor God and love God by doing our very best to Love God‘s people.