2018 Week 9 - Serving with Purpose

Yesterday, we commemorated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

We also recognized the sacrifices his entire family made in service to others.   

We are grateful for the King family and their service to mankind.

As I remembered Dr. King and his family, I wanted to share a few quotes with you. 

Not everyone can be famous but everybody can be great 

because greatness is determined by your service.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Service is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth" - 

attributed to Muhammad Ali and Shirley Chisholm

If serving is beneath you, leadership is beyond you. 

Anonymous. 

Romans 12:1 says (three versions)

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Dear Sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. 

Let them be a living sacrifice holy - the kind he can accept. 

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: 

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. 

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. 

Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. 

Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. 

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, 

God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

(The Message Bible  verse 1 and 2)

Today, I encourage you to continue to serve in the capacity that you have been called to serve.

It is not always easy.  You may not be recognized.  You may not be appreciated.  There are times when you be will be criticized and ostracized - Serve anyway.  

You may receive a thank you, a pat on the back, honor, and recognition -  Serve humbly.

You will see transgressions, you may be invited to conspire, you will witness character assassinations - Serve with integrity

Most of all Serve with purpose.  

Be intentional with your resources, your time and your money.  Avoid joining the cause of the moment or the day.  Be committed to the community, the cause, the issue - that is your work.  

Heighten the awareness of your cause to bring about change and to impact the community.  

Be a servant, be a champion, be a leader.  

Who knows you may have been called for such a time as this.

The Heightening Action Plan:

• Pray
• Read the Bible 
• Chronicle Your Journey
• Listen to this week's theme song -  Brian Courtney Wilson - I'll Just Say Yes
• Attend the conference call -Tuesdays- 7:00 am - The conference number is 218-339-7815 -Access Code: 499 082#.