Tuesdays Words of Encouragement from our Pastor... From time to time, someone will ask me, “What is your occupation?” or maybe they will ask, “Just what do you do for a living?” The road of life is a road of occupation because I have learned to know that the great secret of human happiness is this; never allow your energies to stagnate. The old saying, “too many irons in the fire,”does not convey the truth of life. You cannot have too many pokers or tongs in the fire. All you have to do is to keep them working and the flame of life will burn a long, long time for you. It is a undoubted truth, that the less a person has to do, the less time he finds to do it in. We may sit around and yawn, we may sit around and procrastinate and never find time to do anything worthwhile in life. Whereas, those who enjoy life and are always busy doing something, just simply buckle down to the occupation and they seem to always find time to do whatever needs to be done. In the Book of Luke, Chapter l9:l3, we find this, “Occupy till I come.” Let us stop and think about what the Lord is saying to us. I believe that He is telling us to stay busy in life and to remind you and me of what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 10:l8, “By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands, the house droppeth through.” The reason that so many people get their life in a total mess is the fact that they just have too much idle, unoccupied time on their hands. I truly believe that occupation needs to be a necessity to the younger generation because they love to be busy about something, however trifling. If they are not directed to some useful employment or occupation, they will soon engage in something that is evil, therefore verifying the old proverb, “Idleness is the mother of mischief.” We have heard the old saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” How true that is! It is a known fact that busy people are a happy people. They feel good about themselves , they feel good about what they are doing, and they look forward to where they are going in life. Each and every time I fly a commercial airline, I am amazed to just sit and watch the various airlines flight attendants as they go down the airport concourses to catch their next flight. They always hold their heads high, they walk at a fast pace with energy in their steps, they are dressed to represent the airline they work for and they have a smile on their face. The reason they do this is because it is expected of them. They are trained this way. If I were to be sitting and waiting to board a flight and I saw my flight crew approaching the departure gate and they were dragging their feet, walking like a zombie, dragging their luggage behind them, and dressed not in a uniform and a frown on their faces, I would be afraid of how they would react on board in case of a disaster. What we all need in life is this: to be so occupied with the goodness of life that we can say, “I am proud of who I am,” “I am proud of the One I represent,” “I am proud of where I am going in life,” and “You had better not stand in my pathway of life, or you are liable to get runned over.” Today, unconcern is a sad disease, despondency is even sadder and discontent is the saddest of all three. If we wish to be cured of all these together, next to seeking Divine support, the prescription is occupation. When you and I stay busy and we stay occupied, we don’t have time to sit around and focus on our aches and pains. Work can relieve sore muscles, work will make us strong instead of weak, work will reward us when are faithful to the task set before us. I am reminded of what Jesus tells us about a man with five talents that had been given to him and how the man used his five talents to gain five more talents, Matthew 25:21, “His lord said unto him, Well done though good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter into the joy of the lord.” This is a beautiful example of how we are rewarded when we are occupied. This man did not sit around and yawn, he did not procrastinate, he just put his five talents to work and they increased double fold. Next, he was invited into the joys of his lord. I feel deep within my heart that if the people of God today would make a determination and a strong commitment to stay, “occupied till He comes,” there would be less dissension among them, there would be a lot less gossip among them, and there would be a stronger and deeper love among the brethren. Today, Satan wants people to be unoccupied from the things of God. He desires for them to just sit around and do nothing which will enable him to have more time to destroy them. Too many people today are doing absolutely nothing in the work of the Lord. The crowning fortune of a Christian is to be found busy doing God’s work because we must realize that we will have eternity in which to rest from our labors. Revelation l4:l3, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors,”. I think we all just need to join in on the Tuesday and sing together, “We’ll work till Jesus comes, We’ll work till Jesus comes, and we’ll be gathered home.” On this Tuesday, I want to encourage each of you to know that from the beginning of creation, God gave Adam an occupation to do. Genesis 2:l5, “And the Lord took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Both Adam and his wife, Eve, got into serious trouble when they stopped working in the garden, started looking at the fruit on the tree, took of the fruit and ate it. Had they kept their hands on their hoe, their hands would not have wound up on the fruit. Today, ask God to keep you occupied for Him until He comes back or until you go to your eternal rest with Him. I want to encourage you today to “Labor not for wealth or fame, there’s a crown and you can win it, if you go in Jesus’ name.” Pastor Don
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:43:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015