Goodmorning

This morning is wonderful!  My thoughts were:  God is God and “in him” is no variableness or shadow of turning!  Treat him as God today, trust him as God today, let him breath his “bigness” into your life and circumstances today!  Someone needs the “big” God that you know.

Amazing!!! I got up today thinking of the freedom I have…before February 25, 1975 freedom was not mine….I was bound in every area of my life, addicted to things that destroyed my body, wanting to be free….. the good things I desired alluded me….powerless to change, although I desperately wanted change in my life….

then……on that day in 1975 an amazing thing happened……I quit…I surrendered…I made a decision…I gave my whole being to God…..I surrendered to his Son and he gave me his life.. for mine…an exchange….that’s when I became free….I got a new nature….”things” were different….

I remember thinking wow something is different…I began to have an insatiable hunger for God’s word…really wanting to “eat” it…so sweet to me…that was the beginning of my “new life in Christ”..since then I have worked in the local church as Sunday school director, children’s church teacher, outreach, visitation, sang in worship team,Planted and pastored the local church (which, by the way is the Hope Of The World…) missions, Bible school teacher, traveling minister, helps ministry, giver, prayer warrior, encourager, laying hands on the sick, casting out devils, going about doing good…..wow writing this down has given me some insight into some things in my life and god’s purpose for the local church and the body of Christ.

I am thinking of Paul in 1Corinthians 9..Paul is stating his authority and his freedom in the Gospel…why? Possibly to answer critics, maybe to dispel doubt in those around him, maybe to verbalize his own thoughts to encourage himself…whatever the reason he feels the need and goes on to talk about how “free” he is….

….so I am thinking about freedom…being so grateful…then I realize what a responsibility freedom carries…Paul said it this way in verse 16…necessity is laid upon me, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel…what a responsibility!!! God has set me “free” , why, to do His works….he goes on to say, that I abuse not my power in the gospel….for though I am free from all men, I have made myself servant to all, that I might gain more…

We are all in the race those of you who have surrendered your life to Christ,…..run so that you may obtain the prize…we must be temperate in all things…we must keep under our bodies bringing them into subjection:…so that after we have preached to others we should not be a castaway…or let’s say “put aside”….continue in Him, do not weary in doing good, you will reap if you do not faint!!!