This may be my last post for a few weeks, I leave out at Zero Dark Thirty, tomorrow morning for the 32nd annual
May 18-28, 2022 – CA to DC
May 29 – May 31, 2022 – Sandbox
Run for The Wall® is an annual motorcycle ride from California to Washington DC.
After we arrive in Washington, D.C., and visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall), we offer a fourth Route, the “Sandbox Route”, that goes “Wall to Wall” from DC to the Middle East Conflicts wall in Marseilles, IL
I will be a Chaplain and Medic with Misson M25, serving veterans and their families
on the Southern and Sandbox Routes (on my bike) as well as utilizing my truck to pull the hydration trailer.
Please pray for everyone’s safety as we ride across America to and from our homes.
SERVICE
CONTEXT: As usual, we turn to Matthew Henry for an overview of this chapter: The work of a Christian is twofold—doing the will of God and suffering his pleasure. This chapter directs us in both. The duties we are here exhorted to employ ourselves in are the mortification of sin, living to God, sobriety, prayer, charity, hospitality, and the best improvement of our talents, which the apostle presses upon Christians from the consideration of the time they have lost in their sins, and the approaching end of all things (v. 1-11). The directions for sufferings are that we should not be surprised at them, but rejoice in them, only take care not to suffer as evil-doers. He intimates that their trials were near at hand, that their souls were in danger as well as their bodies, and that the best way to preserve their souls is to commit them to God in well-doing.
I am convinced that Matthew Henry hits the nail dead on the head as the saying goes when he wrote, The work of a Christian is twofold—doing the will of God and suffering his pleasure. What is the Christian Life if not service to God and a willingness to suffer as Christ in that service? Here is a partial list of verses that I believe make my case:
Romans 12:1-2 – We are to live a Holy Life conformed to God’s law and not the ways of the world
1 Corinthians 4:1-2 – In order to serve God (ministers of Christ), we must be Faithful Stewards of His Word. Even Satan and his minions know the Bible, maybe better than most of us, but they twist it to deceive us and others with lies. We MUST study and FULLY understand Biblical Truths.
1 Corinthians 15:58 – We are to abound or excel in good works for the Lord.
Ephesians 2:10 – We are chosen, reborn, and saved by God for good works.
James 1:2-4 – We must be a willing servant. No cowering at the first signs of trouble. God tests our faith with little things to grow it for more important things.
I close with this short article/story from C.H. Spurgeon about humility in servitude:
| A heap of ostentatious service! There is a considerable tendency among Christian people, in serving Christ, to aim at making a fair show in the flesh. Among professing Christians, there is a desire to build church buildings notable for their architecture and beauty. We must have no more barns! Our meeting houses must exhibit our improving taste! If possible, our chapels must be correctly Gothic or sternly classical in all their details, both without and within! As to the service, we must cultivate the musical and the tasteful. We must not to be barely decent, but to aim at the sublime and beautiful. Our public worship, it is thought, should be impressive if not imposing. Care should be taken that the music and singing be conformed to the best rules of the art, and the preaching eloquent and attractive. Brethren, there is something better to be aimed at than the outward and the external. We judge no man, yet we fear the tendency is to imagine that mere externals are precious in the Master’s sight. Jesus counts it a very small matter whether your church building is a cathedral or a barn! To the Savior it is small concern whether you have organs or whether you have not; or whether you sing after the choicest rules of psalmody or not. Jesus looks at your hearts, and if these ascend to Him, He accepts the praise. Jesus would be better pleased with a grain of love, than with a heap of ostentatious service! All that you can give to Christ in any shape or form will not be so dear to Him as… the offering of your fervent love; the clinging of your humble faith; the reverence of your adoring souls. Do not neglect the spiritual for the sake of the external; or else you will be throwing away gold to gather to yourself iron; you will be pulling down the palaces of marble that you may build for yourselves hovels of clay. |
RELATED:
Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach 