That really ended up being the main point of the message Sunday, although it was not the intended outcome. God really took over in the latter half of my message, reminding me that not only do we need to follow our Masters teaching and become His disciples, we have to BE His disciples by doing what His word says. Live it out daily!
Here's the interesting part about Sunday, the God part if you will. When we prep for a sermon, here's the basic process (which is different for all of us):
1. Get the topic, scripture idea in my heart and head. Where does God want me to go and what does He want me to say? Spend time praying over it and listening for direction.
2. Begin to formulate rough outline and main point to share. Rough draft so to speak.
3. Through prayer, develop the message with related research, stories, personal stories, etc. Put it all together in a message form.
4. Once message is done, review, pray over, run through a couple of times to make sure it flows.
Also, does it make the point I'm trying to make? Does it move people to make a choice to DO
something for God or change direction in their life for God?
That's the very rough gist of it. We have a clear direction and idea for what we believe God wants to accomplish on Sunday. And then we arrive at church, ready to deliver what we believe is His word, and He pulls a slight detour right in the middle of the message!
And what a message! We all know that God calls us to serve and to go. Not a big surprise for anyone who has ever picked up a Bible and read it. We all know that , as disciples, we have to make sacrifices in order to follow. But that was the problem. We all KNEW what was expected, we just weren't DOING it. God had a message for me and for anyone else with a pulse in the room Sunday. Stop KNOWING and start GOING and DOING! I know that I - rather God - stepped on a lot of toes. Good! Mine still hurt and I was the one relating the message.
But how much longer are we going to keep making excuses as to why we can't DO? How many more times is God going to have to give us a wake up call? Church, we ALL have to get after the going and doing NOW. We know what has to be done, so what' holding us back?
Let me encourage you this week to take some time to intentionally get away by yourself and search your heart with God and answer that question - what is holding me back from DOING what You are calling me to do? Let me know how I can help. I'll be praying for you as you seek Him out. Please pray for me as I do the same.
2 comments:
Great message Karl.
something God showed me is,its better to obey than to sacrafice. when we pray we ask God to to do all these things for us like deliver me,help me with.. show me where to serve...so insted of God serve me our prayer should be how can i serve you today. and just a heads up he has allready told us what to do in his word. obey what he has said. like do not commet adultry,LOVE one another,follow me,serve me by sevrving others. that should cover our prayer list.he is our master not the other way around.so what happens when we do it our way is like when, God said DONT TOUCH THE ARK. so the guys carring it one day droped it and one tryed to catch it. what happend to him. he told a king to kill a entier tibe so he did but, he thought he would save the cattle to sacrafice to God. God dont like it when we try to serve him when he would rather have us obey him.
learning to obey real fast
jb5150
I agree, great meesage!
And yet, sometimes, when we "just do it" we fail or we are blocked from "doing it" - doing what God has called us to do. Part of being able to serve God through our gifts is to prepare for their use.
Our spiritual and talent gifts are provided for us to use for God's glory, but they don't come prepackaged and ready for expert performance - we have to practice. Whether it be a musical gift, a gift of service, a gift of prophecy, or any other gift, to be able to serve well with it we must learn about how to use and practice its use. Our realtionship development with God (daily quiet time, Bible study, etc.) are part of the preparation and so is practicing the use of our gifts. As Paul said, we must train ourselves up like an athlete preparing to run a race to be prepared for the day (time) our gifts are needed, so that we can honor God with our best.
My fanny is getting kicked by this thought - another thing I need to set aside time for - and yet, we will stand as unfit servants if we are not prepared to give our best with the talents we have been given.
May God show us mercy for our lack of preparation and give us wisdom to be better prepared.
MMN
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