Preacher's Pulpit #2

Preacher’s Pulpit Jan. 5, 2014 Comrades, greetings in the name of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. I love this time of year! New beginnings, new starts, new resolutions, and of course, a new year. In reality, each day when we wake up in the morning or whenever if you work shifts like me, we have a fresh start. You may have heard the saying that “this is the first day of the rest of your life”. This is a true statement that someone with Godly wisdom came up with. Just as each day when you get out of bed is a new start so it is when you receive Jesus as your Savior. The Word says in 2nd Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” When you receive Jesus as your Savior he takes an eraser and erases all of the long lists of sins that the devil has wrote on the chalk board of Heaven and writes your name in the Book of Life. With this new life though comes new responsibilities. We are not saved just so we can go to Heaven. We are bought with a price and now we are not our own. We belong to the Lord. For this reason we need to seek the Lord to know what his will is for our lives. Having a job and providing for our families is essential and Godly but, Jesus wants to know who will go the extra mile for Him. To go the extra mile for Him requires self denial and usually sacrifice and suffering. This scares a lot of people off from serving Jesus. The Lord himself did not come to earth to be served but to serve. We must remember that the early Christians were called that because they were Christ-like. This label was made up as a derogatory name by those who did not like Christians (to put it mildly). Today we should wear this label with honor. What a blessing to be so like Jesus that someone on the street would instantly try to insult you by calling you a Christian! So comrades, are you like Christ enough that you can bear the title of Christian? Let us all examine ourselves to see if we are Christ-like enough to be called a Christian. May the Lord bless you and keep you in his hands till we meet again. Chaplain King