The Sermon

On sunday my pastor was reflecting on the past year of 2008. I don't know what the rest of the church got from it but I would like to say what I got from it. First thing, he told us what he had written to some place, what our mission statement was. He said that our mission statement as a church is to raise up a generation (church) who is fervantly in love with the Lord. I think that that should be the mission statement of our lives. God put us here to seek his name and then to witness and save the lost. We ourselves should be fervantly in love with the Lord and then secondly trying to get others to follow Christ and do the same. I've been working on the me part but not so much the others part this past year. As we came into the new year I made it a goal of mine to be more of a witness. And even though I may be homeschooled I have so many opportunities to witness to others. I go to school in the morning, I go to work, I am out in the world plenty to, at least, show Christ's love to others.
He then started talking about tithing. The bible says to pay ten percent of your income to tithe. It also says we should pay offerings. Another goal of mine this new year is to start paying offerings. My pastor said, and I agree 100%, that when we tithe and give offerings, we are very blessed. There is one family in our church that I know are faithful tithers and offerers, not only of their money but also of their time. If you need help you can always count on them to help you out, unless they're doing something they have no way out of, like traveling or something like that. You can clearly see that they are a blessed family, that is if you know them haha. I have seen though in my peers, and in people in our church that the people that tithe and give offerings are very blessed. My pastor said that he doesn't want to hang out with people who are not tithers, becuase the bible says these people are cursed. I mean if you aren't saved, he'll of course talk to you and show you what your missing out on, but if you claim to be a christian and do not tithe, get on it! Tithing is a very important thing. Along with praying and reading the word daily.
He also talked about who our first love should be. If you're a christian and don't know the answer to that, my goodness check your heart! We need to have Christ as our first love. In everything we do and say it should show Christ, gotta say, haven't been doing that. But he was talking about getting his two sons into shooting games or something like that, and he said that nothing will get in the way of church. If there's a tournement on a sunday, his boys will not be there because they are going to be in God's house that day. How often do we put God on the number one of our list of important things. When things come up do we say, OO well its just this one sunday, or it's just youth group? God needs to be the number one and nothing should be able or have the power to get in the way of that. And if it does then we need to rethink just how important it is to us. God needs to be on throne of our life and in every part of it. My youth leader uses this anology: If someone were to stalk us and put pictures to fill an entire room full of our life in the past six months, what would they be able to say about us? Would they say: They clearly love Christ, or would they say: They're just like me and there's nothing different about them. If they watched the movies you watched, or the music you listened to, would it show Christ or would it show the world? I know for me that I've lost focus on God a little bit. I am now striving to get closer to Him because He is worth all my time and effort. Think about your life in the past six months. What would they say about you?