Speak Lord Your Servant Hears

Recently we were informed that our Pastor of the last ten years is leaving. Three years ago, the Lord began working on his heart to go to do as the scriptures call, "go and make disciples of all the nations." He has been called to missionary work overseas.

We, as the body of believers he leaves behind, must be gracious senders. We must graciously send him to those God is preparing to change through him. Although he will be greatly missed, we must not let our hearts falter because God is still at work in our midst. After all, it is not about us, but about the father. In all things, we must be just as Jesus was, about our fathers business.

Often "the church", the body of Christ, gets off track and thinks of what they want and not what God wants. Today as our Tuesday morning women’s group discussed session 10 of "Experiencing God", we came to a few conclusions I would like to share with you.

We as the body must always keep in mind who the head is.

The head is the one in charge, the one who directs the entire body. Jesus being the head of the church is the one that directs us as the body. He directs the body as a whole and also each church individually.

It is Jesus we should be seeking our direction from as a body of believers. It is His will that we should seek through prayer, the word, circumstance and other believers. Once we as a body know His will, we then should begin to join Him in His work.

As we embark on the transition of finding a new Pastor to lead our congregation, we must remember that Jesus is still in charge. How ever long it takes and how ever difficult it may become, we must stay focused on His will, not our own. If we look for His direction and then follow where He directs, it will keep us from falling prey to the enemies tactics.

At a time like this, where transition in leadership is taking place, is when Satan loves to do damage to the body of Christ. We as the people of Christ must be aware of his ploys and stay focused and directed by Jesus to ward off the attacks likely to come our way.

We as the body of believers must strive to stay unified.

We must stay focused on being directed by the head - Jesus Christ. Often churches can settle for majority rule in times of transitions because they don't want to wait for the head to unify the entire body. God is the one that builds His church. Each person is in the body and brought to the congregation by God. Jesus prayed for unity in the church (John 17) so the world would believe in him. We should have a similar burden for unity.

We as believers can build up or tear down. During this time of transition, we must be mindful of our responsibility to one another. It is our responsibility to urge each other to unity and not division.

We have a responsibility to help the church accomplish Gods purpose through it.
Each one of us has a responsibility to further the purpose of God. Our church body was established by God for the purpose of furthering the kingdom and bringing Him glory. This purpose can not be fulfilled unless we each take our responsibility to do our part to accomplish it.

You may wonder what that responsibility looks like. I believe it looks like this:

*Each of us must take responsibility for our own attitudes and actions.
We must come together with the attitude of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:10. Eli told Samuel the go lie down and when the Lord called him to say "Speak Lord, your servant hears." So when the Lord called Samuel he said "Speak Lord, your servant hears."

Samuel didn't argue or resist the Lord. Instead, he came with a humble, compliant, open heart. He came with an open heart to hear what ever it was the Lord had to say.

We too must come to this transition that the Lord has set before us with a humble, compliant, open heart. Our heart and attitude must be one like Samuels, "speak Lord, your servant hears." It doesn't matter who the speaker is on Sunday morning, God speaks when His word is being proclaimed. If we come each Sunday with an open heart we will continue to hear from the Lord no matter who is at the pulpit.

*Each of us also has a responsibility to be our brother’s keeper.

During this time, if we see a brother going in the wrong direction or bringing disharmony to the body, we have the responsibility to reach out in love. We must be advocates for the body and its unity.

If we see others that are unhappy or tearing down instead of building up, we must gently remind them the purpose of the church. It is for Gods glory, we come together. It is His church, in which He graciously allows us to serve.