A Servants Heart

October 22nd 2009 the lord gave me this message for everyone to hear. I preached it in a youth group for the first time on December 17th 2009.

Matthew 20:26-27 (KJV)
But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.

So in the beginning of the sermon I had people wash their friend’s feet. Then after ward I asked them how it felt to get their feet washed and how it they felt washing the feet of the other person. Both of the people that got their feet washed were very thankful. But then I asked the people that washed the feet how they would feel if the other person was not thankful, but not only not thankful spit in their face and was just well excuse me French but a total jerk about it? Then I said this quote

“How do you know if you have a savant’s heart? It’s how you act when you’re treated like one.”

How do you know when you should serve?

Well one day I was shoveling my driveway. The snow was heavy and wet and to make it better I was shoveling with the shovel me grandpa Adams made and it was all straight and metal. So every time I would pick up a pile of snow it would slide right off. Fun right? Well I was coming down to the end of the drive / the hardest part because the snow plows through everything into a pile at the end of my drive. So as I was digging a maze through the snow I looked across the street. And there lied the drive way of the Nabors across the street coated with a heavy thick blanket of snow. And I felt like God was saying to go over there and do there’s after mine. I mean you could imagine what I was thinking “ya right”. But the lord just kept laying it harder and heavier on my heart. So as I got done with mine I put the shovel over my shoulder and gazed over across the street fighting with myself should I or should I walk my freezing body back inside? So I chose to go back inside. But as I was walking it dawned on me that if we have to ask if we should do it but we know its right than we should probably do it.

So I ran over there nobody appeared to be home which was good. So I started and tried to go as fast as I could. Every time a car would drive by I just kept thinking “o no is that them” And kept trying to think of something to say if they came. Like “um I’m not trying to steal your snow” or things along those lines. But they did not show so I finished in record braking time and ran back to my house and took a shower.

So how do we know when we should serve? “If we have to ask if we should do it but we know it’s right than we should probably do it.

So God calls everyone to different things. But he calls everyone too and gives the ability to everyone to talk about him and his love. So in a sense we are all called to be leaders to stand up for our faith and to work to plant seeds.

So I see Jesus as a leader not just because he had followers but because he shows us what a really leader should be like. And we as Christians try our very hardest to be Christ like. But let us remember Jesus Christ is the master of love and he came not to be served, or be some kind of big ruler but He came to to serve and give his life.

By serving you’re not only being Christ like our also being a leader.

1 Thessalonians 2:8-9 ( NLT )
We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you.

One of the things you can learn from Christ Jesus

So on October 8th 2009 I was driving back from visiting a friend and the Lord just hit me with this thought. So we sin and the voice in our head (God) say’s NO DON’T DO IT!!! And well we do it anyway.

Well first thing to let the devil win in this situation don’t get back up then and stay down and defeated. But if you don’t want him to win jump right back up and try you’re very hardest to live as close to God as you can.

Second thing what dose God do after we do this? He blesses us and still loves us. He loves us even when we run from him. Even while were driving the nails into the cross, he still loves us. Like in Isaiah 6:5-8

Isaiah 6:5-8 ( KJV )
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

For we are FORGIVEN through Christ Jesus.

But we need to keep in mind that as God forgives us, we need to forgive the ones driving the nails into our hands. Forgive the ones that are stabbing us in the back. We need to love them unconditionally.

It might be one of the hardest things you have to do but it also one of the most important things you can do.

Thoughts

So October 13 2008 I was really having a hard time because I would be having bad mean thoughts about people. And I felt like there was something wrong with me. But the Lord told me there is not anything wrong. And told me this..

“So when a homeless person walks in on a Sunday and is smelling something fierce, he doesn’t have a lot of teeth, talking to himself and having trashy clothes and hair. Ya you would of course feel bad for him but at the same time you would want to stay away. You say to yourself should I approach him”

So you can’t really control your thoughts all the time. What matters is what you chose to act upon, that is what counts.

And yes you of course can help with what you dwell on when your board but at the same time don’t get down on yourself when you are thinking this way towards this homeless man or whoever is the homeless man in your life.

Who is the homeless man in your life?

Really ask yourself this question. Would you make a choice to ignore him or act upon the love of Christ Jesus?

My prayer for you is that God would give you his eye's to really see and that the thoughts of your heart and minds are holy and pure in the sight of our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.

Feeling

Hey so October 8th 2008 God put me in the worship ministry at church.But in october 15th I had been praying that God would help me to stop relying on the feeling of him. While I’d be worshiping and leading it I could not feel God any more, but I kept pushing on and trying my hardest to worship but still nothing. After a few weeks I was sick of it and I prayed that God would help me understand why I mean I can’t explain it, it was like when I would worship there was like a bunny jumping and distracting me in my mind like I always had something I was thinking about.

But one day while I was driving my awesome beautiful 1994 Grand Mercury Markey God told me that the feeling from him is like a fire work, something that he gives us for a reason not only just to feel good.

So a fire work is lit, it fly’s as fast as it can to the sky. Burning at a rapped passé whistling till it can’t go any more and explodes with awesome lights and passion. But as time goes by the fire work fades and eventually disappears.

If we are relying on only that feeling what happens when its disappears, when it goes? I figured out that I was actually worshiping the feeling and no Christ Jesus. God was putting that bunny/ thought that kind of distracted me to push me, to drive me to surrender all I had when I was worshiping.

At that point I never had that problem again. And I felt closer to God KNOWING that he is always by my side.

Looking to the past

So I’m starting to put in all my old journal entries from when I really first started changing my life till now. Enjoy!

So I was hanging out with some friends one Friday night and we were discussing our weeks and my buddy Dimetery Stoilofe (yes he's Russian) said "I'm just not as close to God as I us to be. At that moment God gave me this thought, and this is what I told all of them...

I often hear Christians say "o I us to only listen to Christian music pray every day, read the word and just be on fire for the Lord. But right now I just don’t know I just can’t seem to get that close to God again."

"You’re only as close to God now as you want to be"

I have a friend that I’m still praying for named Mike (that’s a fake name for other purposes) and Mike was in a pretty big ministry spot in the church. But he always talked about how there was one point in his life that he was just so close to God and how he us to just listen to Christian music and pray like hours a day. And how he just got to busy and he never said this but I believe he felt that he would never reach that closeness ever again. A year or two later he was burned out and I believe just sick of the whole church and Christian thing and quit his ministry in the church. He now very rarely comes to church and works instead.

So Mike what was wrong with him, what happened? Well I believe one he was not in the word as much or at all and that he put his past relationship on a pedestal so high that he felt he would never be able to reach it again. And it was hindering his growth in the Lord and opened his ears up to the devils lies. For the word says

Phl 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Phl 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
Phl 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The main word here is Strain, we need to strain and push forwards or you won’t grow and you will eventually get burnt out or spiritually dry. Stop talking about how you were so close to the Lord and instead act and strain to and for what the Lord has for you know.

The Webster’s definition of strain

Strain = Difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension

physical strain = deformation of a physical body under the action of applied forces.

(psychology strain)= nervousness resulting from mental stress; "his responsibilities were a constant strain"; "the mental strain of staying alert hour after hour was too much for him"

Love

So this morning I read again the Mike Donehey devotional and it was on the song Times. And the message was about that you’ll never be changed by the love of God until you’re completely honest with yourself and how undeserving you are of it. His love is underneath, higher than the heights of our purity, and lower than the depth of our depravity and not one of us is without our need of Him.

What is God’s Love to you?

How are you not being completely honest with yourself?

Do you truly believe that you’re undeserving of God’s love and that through His awesome Grace we are made perfect?

Do you honestly believe he loves you and how much?

All these questions are something we as Christians should know the answer to and ask themselves them every day. But I know that we all don’t know or remember on a day to day basis about the love of God. Our understanding of love is partial if that?
Yes you would die for a friend or a family member, but would you die for ones you hate? For the ones that hate you.
Because my friend did and is name is Jesus Christ. He not only suffered persecution but a huge amount of pain but He did that with the weight of the world’s sin on His shoulders and died while we still hated Him. How great is our God?! How great is His love, how wide, who deep, who great is your love for me?

Here are the words to the song Times by Tenth Avenue North enjoy.


i hear you say "my love is over,
its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
well my love is over, its underneath
its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and *are tempted* to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
im there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
im there through your heartache
im there in the storm
my love i will keep you by my power alone
i dont care where you've fallen, where you have been
i'll never forsake you
my love never ends, it never ends

Who you Are

So have we strived enough to remember who God is? Well do it, and remember what he's done fo all of us and how Awesome his power is.
Here's an awesome song by The Desperation Band Who you Are just sit back and try to remember who He is.



I won’t be satisfied
I won’t be found alright ‘til I find
Who You are

I’d climb every mountain
I’d travel the deepest valley to find
Who You are

You, You cause the lame to walk
You open lips to talk
You’re everything and that is who You are
You, You calm the storms at night
You turn the dark to light
You’re everything and that is who You are

My Savior, my Healer, Redeemer
That is who You are
Creator, my Maker, my Father
That is who You are