Parting Thoughts

Parting Thoughts (Hebrews 13:20-21)

This is my last regular Freedom Fighter. I’m grateful to Bill Welte for allowing me the privilege of writing the weekend Freedom Fighters. As much as I enjoy writing the weekend pieces, I’ve sensed the Lord telling me that I need to take the next year to listen for His voice and be more attentive to His work in my life. Part of my response to God’s leading is the choice to be quiet, read and listen. I hope I will have occasion in the future to contribute to Freedom Fighters. Until that occasion comes, I’ll enjoy reading Freedom Fighter. Please pray for Bill as he writes each day. Believe me, it’s no easy task to write something fresh every day.

Allow me to share some parting thoughts with you. They come from the writer of Hebrews. Listen to his words: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

My prayer for each man and woman who reads Freedom Fighter is that the God of peace will make you complete in every good work. For that to happen, each of us must choose to yield to His work, that work that is well pleasing in His sight. I pray that all of us will discover in fresh and growing ways that God wants to work in our lives. He has plans for you and me. He has work He wants to do in all our lives.

That’s part of the reason I am choosing to live a bit quieter this year. I want to discover more of His plan for me. I want to better understand the work He wants to do in my life. My sense is that many of you who read Freedom Fighter have the same desire. I urge you to pursue the “completeness in every good work” that God has for you. Do whatever it takes, because nothing any of us can pursue has more value than knowing that God is at work in us for His glory and our good.

God bless each of you in 2009. Thank you for reading what I’ve written. I pray that God will use it in your life to help you become “complete in every good work.” -- Pastor John Strain is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Toms River

God's WORD for YOU: Proverbs 28; Zechariah 5-8; Revelation 19

Great Quote: Let our temper be under the rule of the love of Jesus: He can not alone
curb it, - He can make us gentle and patient. Let the vow, that not an unkind word of others shall ever be heard from our lips, be laid trustingly at His feet. Let the gentleness that refuses to take offence,that is always ready to excuse, to think and hope the best, mark our intercourse with all. Let our life be one of self-sacrifice, always studying the welfare of others, finding our highest joy in blessing others. And let us, in studying the Divine art of doing good, yield ourselves as obedient learners to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. By His grace, the most common-place life can be transfigured with the brightness of a heavenly beauty, as the infinite love of the Divine nature shines out through our frail humanity. Andrew Murray