Service

As you know we visited the Jezreel Valley today, but there is so many things that happen that I cannot communicate everything. So I thought maybe today in addition to the field report I’d fill you in with a little bit of the more personal side of things.
Every week we go on a field trip. We sit in class on Friday and take a quiz over Wednesday’s field trip for the first half of class. Then we get a preview of the next weeks field trip. Monday comes around and we learn more about the theoretical side of the places that we are going to see on Wednesday. Then the real fun comes on Wednesday.
On any given Wednesday, Becky (one of the IBEX workers who is awesome), has made us all sack lunches, filled with the bountiful booty of the land. Such as pretzels, home made cookies/desserts, apple sauce, PB&J’s, turkey sandwiches, etc. We all have to have our lunch by 7:59 am in order to leave the Moshav by 8:00.
Today was no different. We left and spent the day just as I described it in the previous blog. But since this is the first night of the Galilee field trip, we spent the night in Nazareth at a Catholic convent. This convent has an amazing chapel and after dinner we all gathered into the chapel to sing. We have had awesome times singing in chapels in the past and why should this time be any different? Well let me tell you that it wasn’t different at all and it was an amazing time praising our Messiah, with my brothers and sisters.
When I say brothers and sisters I really mean it. Of course I can not know every person in the group with the depth that would like, but the people I do know and from what I’ve learned of every person, it is a privilege to worship with them. Every note that is sung by all the other 39 IBEX-ers is a blessing to my own soul. In Ephesians 1:4-6 it says, “In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” And in verse 11 it says, “In Him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” Notice the US and the WE of these verses. This Christian life is not a solo thing. This Christian life is a “team effort” so to say. There is to be some sort of Christian community. We are all here for each other. And in being here for each other that means that we serve one another. Whatever the task is that falls under the umbrella of serving, that is what we need to do for one another. Not because we get something out of it, but because God calls us to do it.
A lot of the time I think that others should be serving me because I deserve it. What a load! I deserve nothing, which should make me want to serve even more. And the only reason that I was saved in the first place was to be given to Christ as a perfect bride, but not just me, the whole church. That is my brothers and sisters. That is my pastor and the children in Sunday school. Every person who has been saved, has been saved for one purpose only. And that is to glorify God, nothing else. Glorify God. And how do we do that? Colossians 3:17 “Whatever you do whether in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him”
So I just wanted to thank all of my brothers and sisters for serving me tonight in a way that Colossians tells us to: sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, admonishing one another in wisdom. This is what Christian community should be doing. And I am thankful to be in a place that serves God by serving others.