Dear Brethren,
As we welcome the New Year 2019, let us always be reminded of having the Lord first and foremost in our lives. Nothing should occupy God’s rightful place in our hearts and lives. God desires to build an intimate relationship with us based on His unconditional love. Growth can only occur in this relationship when we put Him first in our lives, worshiping Him for who He is, not for who we want Him to be!
My dear brethren, we must choose to cultivate our adoration and affection for God. Worshiping God as the preeminent One in our heart is part of cultivating a vibrant, growing relationship with Him. God wants us all to have such kind of loyal adoration and affection that puts Him first and foremost in our lives. The days ahead of us have surely many challenges, and we must realize that the greatest challenge in the Christian life is the challenge to keep God first. Keeping God first, and loving Him preeminently is where it all begins. The other challenges of life will be much easier to overcome if we will decide NOW to follow Him unconditionally!
We must always recognize and respond promptly to such great urgency in the ministry that we received from the Lord. Let us be aware that we are dealing with eternal souls, and time is so limited. Indeed as David utters in I Samuel 21:8c, “…the king’s business required haste.” The Bible in Ephesians 5:15-16 appropriately instructs us, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” And because of the limited time, we are then to pray with Moses, the man of God as recorded in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
We vigorously respond NOW to God’s call, press on, and CONTINUE to do our best in the days ahead. Let us, among others, and by God’s sustaining grace, be up and about our commitment and the fulfillment therein of our Faith Promise Missions Giving. This becomes much more pressing and vital in view especially of the welcomed increasing number of Missionaries both in the foreign and local fields that we must consistently hold the rope for. Let us therefore, my dear brethren, seriously take to heart the continuing challenge, and thereupon completely trust God in enabling us to at least equal our Faith Promise Missions Giving with that of our Tithe.
A much more blessed, Christ-filled, and God-exalting New Year to us all!
All By God’s Grace and For God’s Glory!
Pastor Gerry Nable