Until the final day week 29, 2015

I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven Acts 1:1-2 (NIV). Until the day He was taken up. He was doing and teaching and He died. Yet He did not stop. The pain and shame did not cause Him to stop. And then He rose again; yet the victory from the resurrection did not make Him stop and rest from doing and teaching right up till the final moment of being taken up.  Joash sought the Lord and served him wholeheartedly, until his mentor Jehoiada died. After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king, and he listened to them. They abandoned the temple of the Lord... 2 Chron 24:17-18(NIV). When far from your mentors, “discipler”, or watcher because of transfer, Youth Service or their death do you begin to listen to other things, or do you remain steadfast? God commended the steadfastness of the Rechabites years after their father’s death despite the prophet urging them to change. Jer35:4-14

Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord (2Chron26:4). But when he prospered greatly and was strong and famous he left. But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God 2 Chron 26:16(NIV).  Will wealth and fame knock you off?  Gideon did so well until the Midianites were subdued. Thereafter a gold ephod ensnared him. Gideon made the gold into an ephod ... and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. Jgs 8:27(NIV). After your “life mission” is done will you still be doing and teaching? Solomon loved the Lord and walked in His ways until his old age. He had completed the temple asked of him by his father. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. 1 Kgs 11:4, 6(NIV)  When you have married, when you have borne children and they have all grown up and married in the faith will that be the opportunity to say “I can leave God and strict holiness now. I have completed my mission in life”? Not so with Enoch: after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Gen 5:22-23(NIV). Beloved you must be wise; we must be as the wise servant. The wise servant is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Mt 24:46(NIV) “So doing”: that phrase is in the present continuous tense. Living the life and doing the job right up to the call-up of the Lord. When the Lord comes for you as he appears in the sky, or he sends for you by the cold hands of death will you (will I) be found so doing? Right up to the moment? Like Paul we shall testify the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim 4:6-8(NIV)  “My flesh is tired of pleasing God, but on my knees I’ll stay. I want to be a pleasing child until that final day” Keith Green