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May 2008
Blessings and Greetings in the mighty Name of Yeshua. I pray you’re growing in the Lord’s grace. The Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word complete as meaning to bring to an end and especially into a perfected state. Let me share with you what the Bible is telling us about completion.
In Proverbs 12:27, “The lazy man doesn’t roast his prey but the diligent man prizes his possessions.” What does that mean? “The lazy man doesn’t roast his prey but the diligent man prizes his possessions.”
Well there are some people who really get into sushi. I have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with people getting into sushi but I have a problem with sushi, raw shellfish, even cooked shellfish, oysters and mussels, I have a problem with it - raw and this is a delicacy. You scrape barnacles off the sides of a ship and put it on a plate and give it a Japanese name and it is a delicacy. I think Moses would have had a problem with it. It is not just not kosher, raw octopus tentacles on a plate, that is beyond kosher. And in this proverb, sushi or not, raw food is not a good thing. In general, raw meat can’t be eaten. In the same way, if you buy raw meat and you don’t cook it in time, it will go bad. The person who doesn’t cook his food, loses the spoils of his or her labor.
So what’s the spiritual meaning of all this. God is saying, “You need to bring your task to completion.” If unfinished things are going to rot away and if you don’t finish it you are going to lose it. You are going to waste it. All that hard work goes to nothing, if you don’t finish it.
It is easy to fall in love but it is another thing to love somebody for the rest of your life. It is easy to fall in love for many people, but it is a greater thing to love the same person and to follow it through for the rest of your life. It is one thing to have a baby and another thing to raise a child and to be a real parent. It is easy to say I love you and another thing to live it. It is easy to become a husband and another thing to be a husband for the rest of your life. It is easy to become a wife and another thing to live as a wife the rest of your life. It is easy to start out in ministry and it is another thing to complete your calling. It is easy to say, I will help with the Lord’s work and it is another thing to finish it. We need perseverance and diligence to see it through.
Good things take diligence, perseverance, and consistency. If something is good, we need to persevere and it needs to be persevered for, especially when you don’t feel like it otherwise it rots. A beautiful baby, turns into a troubled child if the child isn’t properly parented. A sweet wife who isn’t love turns into a resentful one. A living ministry turns into a dead one if it is not followed through with prayer, devotion and love. A life full of promise turns into a wasted one if it is not followed through. So learn from the sluggard. Bring your calling, your tasks, your charges and your responsibility, your mantle, your life into completion. Do what you have to do and follow through. Be persistent, be persevering, be consistent and follow through. “Roast your prey” and you will be blessed with the fruit of your reward and don’t let it become like sushi, don’t let it become raw, spoiled and wasted but “Roast your prey.”
P.S. Keep in prayer the work on our new building – for all approvals from the town, for the laborers for the harvest, for the support and time needed to get it done (in time). And now that the Lord has blessed us with such a large tent and net, pray for the Holy Spirit to touch all of us – to ignite and anoint us to spread the Gospel and invite in, as never before.
PPS: Leadership Team Meeting: Monday night, May 5th at 7:30 PM. The Leadership Team Meetings are a vitally important and very strengthening time - for all who are part of the leadership team, ministering in and helping to lead one of Beth Israel's ministries. Beth Israel’s Summer Core Meeting will be Monday night, June 2nd at 7:30 PM. The Core/Ministers Meetings are very powerful and special times to equip you to fulfill your calling, with worship and the Word - for all Commissioned Ministers & Deacon Ministers (and open to BI Members coming into full ministry).
