When I was in Jr. High and high school I loved to play tennis. I actually thought about becoming a Pro Tennis Player and dreamed of facing Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and even crazy John McEnroe. That was, as you may have guessed, a dream and not reality for my life. I think I made a good choice bypassing Wimbledon and entering full time ministry! When I was in 7th grade, I participated in the Town Of Smithtown Recreation Tennis Tournament and lost my first match. Reality seriously hit me when I was in High School and was cut from the tennis team (one of the first ones to be cut, unfortunately). However, I did love going to a local High School either at Smithtown West or King's Park High School and loved hitting the ball over the net with a friend. There was one part of my game that was terrible. I never had a good serve! I had a great backhand and a decent forehand but my serve?? Well, let's just say my Grandma Harff had a better serve than me and I don't think she ever did much athletically! She did watch baseball games with us but I don't think she ever played tennis...ever! Maybe if I applied myself, maybe if I continued taking lessons, I would have been a better player with a killer serve and made my High School Tennis team. Maybe I would have received a Tennis scholarship at UCLA and gone pro in 1985 and then played matches in front of thousands of people in the U.S. Open in Queens.....okay...back to reality...maybe not!
This past week I had the privilege of sharing at the West Sayville Christian School Chapel, something I have done almost every school year since 1994. The principal will always let me know what the theme is for that particular chapel. In the month of March the theme verse was 1 Peter 4:10 which says "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." Through various methods of teaching (Ventriloquism, storytelling, gospel illusions and object lessons) I challenged the students in grades Kindergarten to 12th grade to use their gifts and talents for the Lord. The key words in 1 Peter 4:10 are "use whatever gift you have to serve others. My blog today is obviously not about playing tennis, but how God has gifted everyone with a special gift we need to be using to serve Him!
I shared with the students how I discovered my gift as an 8 year old kid in 3rd grade. My teacher, Mrs. McMahon told my parents I was a very gifted writer and I was very creative. I held onto that my entire life of course not realizing I would use it for the glory of God as a children's pastor. That was my gift! Being creative! Coming up with crazy ideas! My gift was NOT counseling or building sets from scratch or being a Youth Pastor. My gift was being creative. That is what I did and how I served God. Lately, my responsibilities have changed and I have been doing more with adults teaching classes and occasionally preaching when needed. My heart has always been to do whatever is necessary to serve God. I pointed at he students in that chapel service and told them "You all have a gift God has given you! Use it for His glory!"Several years ago Charles Swindoll, a gifted speaker and pastor from California wrote a book called "Improving your serve." In some secular book stores, his book was placed in the sports section because people thought the book was about tennis. It was not! The main theme was the book was to encourage Christians to take a deep look into their own lives to see where they were lacking in their service to God. I am not sure if the book is still in print but it really challenged me as a young bible college student when I read it.
So, how is your serve? What are you doing when it comes to your service to God? Are you using your talents for the Lord or are you merely a spectator in church expecting everyone to serve you. It says in Matthew 20:25 "If you want to become great, you must become a servant." I don't know about you but I want to make it a priority to work on my "serve". My tennis days are over but my walk with God continues every day and I do my best to work hard at it and work on my serve...my service to Him!
GOD BLESS YOU ALL AND ENJOY THIS HOLY WEEK! HE IS RISEN!!
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