One thing I loved about the military was the overuse of acronyms. There seams to be one for everything and nearly everyone. Those Soliders that are part of an infantry unit refer to those who are not infantry as P.O.G.s (pronounced with a long "o" sound and meaning: Person Other than Grunts). "Grunt" is a nickname for anyone in the infantry. It is amazing how after a period of time the acronyms just seem normal and you really do not think about them too much.
One acronym that everyone in the military thinks about though is their M.O.S. or "Military Occupational Specialty". My M.O.S. was 56M (referred to as a 56Mike). "Mike" of course comes from the international phonetic alphabet where each letter is given a word instead of just saying the name of the letter when spelling something. A 56M is a chaplain assistant. It was my job to take care of all security and administrative duties relating to the unit's spiritual needs. It was a great opportunity to minister to Soldiers and civilians that were contracted to the U.S. government.
The other day I was thinking about the duty of each Christian and my mind went to the acronym M.O.S. However, since we as Christians are not all physical warriors, but all are called to be spiritual warriors (Ephesians 6:12) M.O.S. stands for Ministry Occupational Specialty. Stay with me for a minute on this. The Bible is very clear that each one has natural or cultivated talents (Matt 25:16). God then gives us spiritual gifts to work in harmony with our "wiring", so to speak. Once we choose to be partners with the Lord we are equipped to do service for Him and the world He died to save.
What is your spiritual M.O.S.? Have you taken the time to attempt to discover your spiritual gift set? If you have it is imperative to attempt to be plugged into your local church where those gifts can be put to use for edification of God's church and kingdom. When I first felt called to ministry I was very unsure about where exactly God wanted me to serve. It took lots of prayer, study, and counsel to determine exactly what God wanted me to do for Him. But what a joy to finally know for sure where I was supposed to be! What a joy to discover God's purpose for my life! Since I gave into God and allowed Him to use me as He sees fit I have never been happier. Regardless of what your talents and spiritual gifts are that make up your M.O.S., I assure you God wants you to be faithful to His calling and He wants you to partner with Him in reaching souls for His kingdom.
I realize that each of us have jobs we must work in order to provide for our families and take care of our financial obligations. And after a hard day's work it is very tempting to spend our free time simply relaxing and soaking up time with our families. These things are necessary too but should they dominate all of our free time? How much of our free time is dedicated to eternal things?
We as Christians talk a lot about stewardship and too often that topic is relegated to only refer to money. Biblically though stewardship refers to our money, time, and talents. What if we were to give tithe and offerings of our time in a systematic way? Each day has 24 hours. If we were to give systematically of our time using the percentages of 10% tithe and 5% offering then 2.4 hours of each day belong to God right off the top of each day by way of a time tithe . When you apply your daily time offering that gives the Lord another 1.2 hours of each day for a total of at least 3.6 hours that should be given to God to each day of the six leading up to the Sabbath. Granted, many of you give much more than 3.6 hours a day to God, but many others give little or no time to God.
I want you to think back over your life and consider how much of what you have done will have eternal consequences? How much of what we have accomplished up to this point in our lives can really be said to have brought others closer to Christ? How many of us have been in the church for years and have never brought one other person to Jesus? Yes, these are tough questions, but they are questions that deserve our attention and consideration today.
It is far past time when we should be about our Father's business. It is time to get real with our Christian experience and begin to focus our time on the truly important areas of life. It is time to work within our spiritual M.O.S. and partner with Christ to win souls for the kingdom. Let's decide today to let nothing stand in the way of sharing Christ with a world that is in desperate need of a Savior.
Dear Father God,
Please forgive us for not being more prepared to work for You. Please give us victory over sin and selfishness, and please empower us to be agents of grace for the spreading of the Gospel. We cannot do this without the Holy Spirit so we pray that today You might infill us and equip us for service. It is in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
One acronym that everyone in the military thinks about though is their M.O.S. or "Military Occupational Specialty". My M.O.S. was 56M (referred to as a 56Mike). "Mike" of course comes from the international phonetic alphabet where each letter is given a word instead of just saying the name of the letter when spelling something. A 56M is a chaplain assistant. It was my job to take care of all security and administrative duties relating to the unit's spiritual needs. It was a great opportunity to minister to Soldiers and civilians that were contracted to the U.S. government.
The other day I was thinking about the duty of each Christian and my mind went to the acronym M.O.S. However, since we as Christians are not all physical warriors, but all are called to be spiritual warriors (Ephesians 6:12) M.O.S. stands for Ministry Occupational Specialty. Stay with me for a minute on this. The Bible is very clear that each one has natural or cultivated talents (Matt 25:16). God then gives us spiritual gifts to work in harmony with our "wiring", so to speak. Once we choose to be partners with the Lord we are equipped to do service for Him and the world He died to save.
What is your spiritual M.O.S.? Have you taken the time to attempt to discover your spiritual gift set? If you have it is imperative to attempt to be plugged into your local church where those gifts can be put to use for edification of God's church and kingdom. When I first felt called to ministry I was very unsure about where exactly God wanted me to serve. It took lots of prayer, study, and counsel to determine exactly what God wanted me to do for Him. But what a joy to finally know for sure where I was supposed to be! What a joy to discover God's purpose for my life! Since I gave into God and allowed Him to use me as He sees fit I have never been happier. Regardless of what your talents and spiritual gifts are that make up your M.O.S., I assure you God wants you to be faithful to His calling and He wants you to partner with Him in reaching souls for His kingdom.
I realize that each of us have jobs we must work in order to provide for our families and take care of our financial obligations. And after a hard day's work it is very tempting to spend our free time simply relaxing and soaking up time with our families. These things are necessary too but should they dominate all of our free time? How much of our free time is dedicated to eternal things?
We as Christians talk a lot about stewardship and too often that topic is relegated to only refer to money. Biblically though stewardship refers to our money, time, and talents. What if we were to give tithe and offerings of our time in a systematic way? Each day has 24 hours. If we were to give systematically of our time using the percentages of 10% tithe and 5% offering then 2.4 hours of each day belong to God right off the top of each day by way of a time tithe . When you apply your daily time offering that gives the Lord another 1.2 hours of each day for a total of at least 3.6 hours that should be given to God to each day of the six leading up to the Sabbath. Granted, many of you give much more than 3.6 hours a day to God, but many others give little or no time to God.
I want you to think back over your life and consider how much of what you have done will have eternal consequences? How much of what we have accomplished up to this point in our lives can really be said to have brought others closer to Christ? How many of us have been in the church for years and have never brought one other person to Jesus? Yes, these are tough questions, but they are questions that deserve our attention and consideration today.
It is far past time when we should be about our Father's business. It is time to get real with our Christian experience and begin to focus our time on the truly important areas of life. It is time to work within our spiritual M.O.S. and partner with Christ to win souls for the kingdom. Let's decide today to let nothing stand in the way of sharing Christ with a world that is in desperate need of a Savior.
Dear Father God,
Please forgive us for not being more prepared to work for You. Please give us victory over sin and selfishness, and please empower us to be agents of grace for the spreading of the Gospel. We cannot do this without the Holy Spirit so we pray that today You might infill us and equip us for service. It is in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Dear Pastor Bentley,
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note here to say I appreciate the message of this post, and the other posts I read just now. I just kind of stumbled on to your blog after following a link to your church from a page in Japanese, which I found to be very interesting. I didn't know that any Japanese person was making a site with a lot of "conservative" type information on it. I myself am a conservative Adventist living in Japan (married to a Japanese, and have been living here 30 years now). I understand the person who made the site attends your church, and I look forward to making his or her acquaintance! I praise the Lord for the way He is working to raise up an army of youth dedicated to finishing His work in the world! I hope a lot of people are reading your blog, and may the Lord continue to give you good ideas and use your words to bless many!