“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying.  Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day.  Do it, I say!  Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”  -Pope Paul VI-

In the book of Hosea we see that God is trying to bring His people back to Him.  They have been living in idolatry or what God called Harlotry, and He was judging them in order to turn them back to Him.  He begins to speak of a day when they will move from serving Him out of duty to serving Him out of relationship.

Hosea 2:16, “And it shall be, in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me ‘My Husband’ and no longer call Me, ‘My Master’.”

Too often our life in Christ looks more like a duty instead of a relationship.  We often serve God legalistically with no hope for grace or mercy when we fall short.  We tend to portray ourselves as perfect people, we look the part of Christians who have “fulfilled their call of duty”, but on the inside, we have no joy because we fall short miserably.

Here is the power of relationship.  In a relationship, we do our best to please our friend/partner, but when we fail, it is not the end of the world because of our relationship.  If we got divorced over every argument in a marriage relationship, there would be no one married.  That is the power of relationship.  We serve one another in love and when we mess up, love covers a multitude of sins.

Too many Christians, live with too little grace.  Not enough grace for others and certainly not enough for themselves.  God wants a relationship with us.  It is His priority.  He wants to be known more as Husband than Master.  When we look at God only as a Master, we tend to serve Him with the wrong motives.  When we enter a relationship with our Husbandman, we find that because we love Him, we serve Him.  In every loving marriage there is submission.

Jesus said it this way, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)

How are you serving God? Serve God out of love, not duty.

In the book Jesus-Driven Ministry, by Ajith Fernando, the author challenges the conventional thinking of the American Pastor.  Fernando is from Sri Lanka and has a different perspective on ministry.  This book has been one of the most impacting books I have ever read on pastoral ministry.  It is a must read for every minister. 

In his chapter on praying, Fernando makes a statement that rocked me to the core.  Let it challenge you also, “One who is not in intimate personal contact with God, cannot lead God’s people into His presence.”

As pastors we cannot neglect the most important element of our ministry, our time with God. 

I admire anybody who can rap…I don’t know how they can say so many words and flow.  I can’t even clap on time; much less clap and sing.  I am not a big fan of rap, although I have this secret dream of being able to rap.  I think it would be fun!  At the Convoy of Hope Outreach Phil and I took a promo shot with Rapper DPB.  He was phenomenal.  I think it would be perfect if Phil and I teamed up with DPB.  The name already fits. 

D – Danny
P – Phil
B – Bobby (I guess the DPB would have to change his name to fit)

Convoy of Hope Outreach was awesome today.  We had a great time blessing the community of Port Arthur.  The power of an outreach like this is found in the vast number of volunteers it takes to pull it off.  Thanks to all of those from our church who helped out this week. 

The most important part of the outreach is the number of salvations, 154.  That’s what it is all about! 

Here are the stats for the day:

40 churches represented
14 organizations involved
2,479 guests
154 salvations
4,000 bags of groceries served

What a great day!

Yesterday Evening, Josh and I worked with a group of people for the Convoy of Hope outreach, which is this Saturday.  Our objective last night was to bag over 4,000 bags of groceries.  That’s alot of groceries.

As we began the process, over a hundred people pitched in to get the bagging done in an hour and forty-five minutes.  That’s pretty impressive.  That equals approximately 38 bags a minute.  Not bad considering each bag has quite a bit of food.  Everything went smoothly because we all had a goal and purpose in mind and we worked to get it done.

In the church, it is amazing what we can do if we all have the same goal and purpose in mind.  What Could We Do if we all worked together like this every week?  If our goal was to win one person to Christ a year, our church would double every year.  If our goal was to plant new churches, we could see the Kingdom of God expanded like never before.  We must work together and follow God’s plan for His church.

The early church started with 120 people in one mind and one accord and in no time they were running in the thousands.  Yes it was a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit works through unified people.  It was not long in the book of Acts before Luke changed the church growth terminology from “they added” to “they MULTIPLIED”

What Could Nederland First Assembly of God do if we all worked together to build our church?  What could the American church do if every church did the same?

I recently read about a college lecture series entitled, “The Last Lecture”.  The premise was they assigned a professor to share a lecture as if it was his last lecture ever delivered.  At Carnegie Mellon a professor, who had only six months to live, delivered the Last Lecture from the perspective of a dying man and what he would want to say to those in the audience.  He shared about his dreams for life and the pursuit of those dreams.

I was arrested with the thought of how that would be a cool sermon or series.  The Last Sermon: What I would share if it was the last sermon I ever preached.  The Last Prayer: What I would pray if it was the last prayer I ever prayed.  The Last Month:  What I would do if it was my last month to live.

None of us are guaranteed life.  In Kerry Shook’s book One Month To Live he talks about living like you are dying.  I know that is morbid but it would do us good to think that way.  What would I do if I only had one sermon to preach, one prayer to pray, one month to live?  You will find our beginning some time in June.

I would be interested to know what you would preach if you only had one last sermon to deliver.

This week we have a lot on the caIendar.  The Convoy of Hope outreach is Saturday.  We still need some help, so if you haven’t signed up, please do.  Here is the schedule:

Thursday (Grocery Bagging) 4:00pm at the Rock Community Outreach Center in Port Arthur
Friday (Site Set-Up) 9:00am at Barbara Jacket Park in Port Arthur
Friday (Volunteer Rally) 7:00pm at the Rock Community Outreach Center in Port Arthur
Saturday (Outreach) 10:00am at Barbara Jacket Park in Port Arthur

For more information you can call the church office.

Next Sunday (May 18th), Life of a Pastor blog will be featured in the Pentecostal Evangel.

Sunday we continue our WHY series by looking at Why Is There So Much Suffering In This World.  We will answer how to live in these troubled times.  Invite a friend!