"Be Not Now Negligent"

I am not sure who all has read any of my previous posts, but a couple of weeks ago I had a post called “Lord of All!”. It was of a poem I had found in one of my books and I had added this verse which the Lord had dealt with me about a few days after reading the poem.

“My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him…..” II Chronicles 29:11

The Lord showed me how negligent and neglectful I am in areas of my life and how we as Christians are in so many areas. Since then we have also had Family Conference at our church, which the Lord has shown me more areas of neglect in my life. I know that we all have them and that many of them may be different, but I believe that there are some key areas that all Christians are prone to neglect. I think that most would agree that Bible reading and prayer are at the top of the list of areas that we neglect. It is so easy to get up in the morning with purpose and a list of things that need accomplished and we could breeze right by spending time with the Lord. I know it’s easy because I have done it and done it more than once! Without a doubt it has been more difficult for me since my second child was born and I am about to add a third child to that. If there are not purposes made in our hearts to make time with Him it can easily be neglected and before we know it He isn’t Lord of anything in our lives.

Our service is another great area of neglect. There are countless ways to serve the Lord, but are we? I know that we all have different callings, talents and purposes for the Lord so it is hard to pick out what yours may be. For all of us it should be Soul Winning. It doesn’t matter who you are, there are souls around you to be saved. We live in a trailer park and to be quite honest with you I know that we have not done our best to try and win the souls around us to the Lord. Yes, we have made contact with those around us, but not to the extent that I know we could. If you are not praying, passing out tracts or witnessing to anyone you meet you have a great area of neglect in your life. If you have children and are not teaching them about the Lord outside of church or having them learn scripture, that is an even greater area of neglect. If we have no other calling it is to see our children saved! If we rest their souls upon only what they hear during church services we might as well be called in for child neglect. I have failed in many areas of teaching and training my children, but our goal should always be to do better.

How do you think that we minister to the Lord? By ministering to others! Most of us would never admit it, but we are SELFISH. If you can sit there and say that you’re not then you might want to ask somebody close to you and see if they agree. You might be surprised. I am not saying that we don’t care about others or that we are not giving, but usually it is only when we feel up to it. We tend to get so wrapped up in our lives that we can seldom see the needs of others. I can guarantee you that there is some one around you that could use some ministering. There are people who would just like a short visit, a phone call or a card. If we were really in tune with the Lord He would show us the people that need ministering and ways that we could minister to them. The Lord has a way of laying certain people on our hearts that he might not have laid on some one else’s heart. That is because he knows who can meet their needs. Have you ever noticed that certain people are drawn together? That is because the Lord knows who can help that person in their time of need. If some one came to me about losing a close loved one I wouldn’t know what to say because I have never lost anyone that close to me. However some of you have and you would be able to help a person who may go through that. You just have to make yourself available. We often don’t make ourselves available and more than likely miss out on a blessing from the Lord.

There are many more areas I could have mentioned, you just have to make it personal to yourself. Has the Lord shown you areas you have neglected? As Bro. Keenan said this week in Family Conference “Just take steps.” The only way to make progress in our areas of failure is to start taking steps.