Balancing Ministry N' Work

The Things We Need… Wisdom helps us to know that we needed the Things We Need… Conviction, and they both help us to know that we need Forgiveness. “ 9  “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10  Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11  Give us today our daily bread. 12  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13  And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” – Matthew 6:9-13 Forgiveness is something that we Need from God, it is something we need from others, but it is also something that we Need to give to others. The Lord’s Prayer, one of the most memorized pieces of Scripture, tells us that we are Forgiven and that we Need to Forgive others. Jesus explains this in the verses that follow the prayer. “ 14  “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.  15  But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will no

As I flip through Things We Need List One and what has been covered so far on Things We Need List Two, I see several ‘Things’ that should lead us to live our next Things We Need… Generosity. Love should drive us to care for others in ways that we give of ourselves to others. To Be Used was a reminder that we were created to meet a need. Jesus gave His life for us, so we should be willing to give to others. Many of the Things We Need… from either list build on each other and it should not surprise us that many of the Things We Need would drive a Follower of Christ to be Generous. “ 32  “And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.  33  I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing.  34  You yourselves know that I worked with my own hands to support myself and those who are with me.  35  In every way I’ve shown you that it is necessary to help the weak by laboring like this

As a follower of Christ, our Hope is in our Lord Jesus and we need to stay focused on Him. You could say, if we are focused on Him we would be Aligned with Christ in every aspect of our lives and in everything we do. It would be great if on day one of following Jesus that we would understand what we need to do and that it would become easier day by day. The reality is, as life throws things our way it is hard to maintain the Things We Need… Alignment with our Lord and Savior. I wish I could say as a Pastor that staying Aligned with Jesus is easy for me, but I struggle with it just as much as the next person. There are times I feel like the Things We Need… Alignment comes easy and there are times that that I am beyond thankful that God meets us where we are. Back in 2012, my family and I lived in a town of about 10,000 people in Iowa. We had moved there for my job and we happened upon a church that was in need of a Pastor. After filling in for the interim Pastor for a few weeks, the