ABOUT MY FATHER’S BUSINESS - Louis Gervais
“ABOUT MY FATHER’S BUSINESS”
“And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought Me? wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” –Luke 2:49 KJV That was Christ’s reply when His mother and Joseph found Him teaching in the temple courts. When God was rebuilding Jerusalem in the Book of Nehemiah some of the Jews said, “we will not neglect the house of our God.” –Nehemiah 10:39b . I feel this best describes that longing to be a part of God’s project. Not your project, not the project of men or my project, but to find that which the Lord is busy with and seeking to be a part of it. And when it was God’s will and timing to make David king over all Israel there were those who joined his forces: “Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command.” –1 Chronicles 12:32 . Just as the memory of planet Earth is full of men of God who sought His will and walked in it, the annals of human history is even more full of those who followed their own dreams—and perished. Even among Christians and missionaries it is not impossible to be so busy with “the things of the Lord” that one loses contact with the Lord of the things!
“I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me.” –Hudson Taylor And then if we are truly where God wants us to be, doing what He wants us to do, let us do it with all of His power working through us! And I’m preaching to myself here. May God find us zealously laboring in His harvest field—may we be found about our Father’s business! This week I was reminded of the urgent importance to pray for lost loved ones like my grandmother and Mr. Van Niekerk and Mr. Kussman. We can pray for the persecuted family’s health and provision. They are also about God’s business, God’s project, God’s errand. One of the boys was asked a riddle during the children’s meetings: “What has hair on its face and catches its own meat?” He meant to say the Afrikaans word for lion, “leeu” (lee-oo) but it came out “Louis” (loo-ee). The children thought the slip of the tongue and following definition attributed to me was quite the joke =^D We had a great Passover camp! A number of people believed and prayed for salvation and others publicly surrendered their entire lives to the Lord for the first time—hallelujah! Please pray for our youth camp this week! It’s from Monday to Thursday. Fewer were able to come this time, but please pray with us that the Lord will work mightily in our midst. He is risen indeed!
–Louis Gervais “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.” –Matthew 24:45-47 KJV