You should have two testimonies – one of how God saved you and one of how God is using you. Where are you volunteering? Are you helping to expand God’s kingdom? Are you actively involved in the life and ministry of your church?
“Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” (Philippians 2:4 MSG) If you aren’t actively serving others, you are missing out on an important component of why you exist.
Locally and globally, members of Valley Fellowship Church (#ilovemychurch!) glorify Jesus Christ as they express love in practical ways. In 2011, we partnered with George Gonzalez and Amazon Xpeditions to provide clean water for a village off the Amazon River. I honor the men who built that water system in Atalaia, Brazil. They cared enough to give their time, their strength, their sweat to serve. What a team! That’s my father-in-law in the middle. They discovered that serving is rewarding.
Never forget that when you serve others you are actually serving Jesus Christ! “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)
When you leave this world, what legacy will you leave?
We were all saddened to learn this week of the death of one our church’s most valuable members – Someone Else. Someone’s passing created a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years, and for every one of those years Someone did far more than the normal person’s share of the work.
Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results. “Someone Else can work with that group.”
Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone’s lips, Someone Else! “Let Someone Else do it” was a common refrain heard throughout the church.
It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the largest givers in the church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed that Someone Else would make up the difference.
Someone Else was a wonderful person, sometimes appearing super-human; but a person can only do so much. Were the truth known, everyone expected too much of Someone Else.
Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do. Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things that Someone Else did?
Remember, we can’t depend on Someone Else anymore. (Mark Stibbe and Darren Harvey-Regan, Basket of Gems, p. 29)
