• What is the story of your life?  I’m not talking about just a list of where you were born, your family, or your marriage.  I’m not talking about the places you’ve lived or the things you have accomplished.  I’m not even talking about your successes and failures.  What I am talking about is the direction of your life.  Where are you headed?  What are your goals?  No matter whether you are young or old, this is still important for you.
• A lot of people just live day to day.  The Bible says, “Do not be anxious about your life,  what your will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on….But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Mat 6:2 5-34).
• What is the kingdom of God?  What is his righteousness?  The kingdom of God is his rule over all creation…the creation he has made for himself, including you!  How do you seek it?  Well first of all just know if you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a citizen of his kingdom, because you are declared to be righteous by faith. ”But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Joh 1:12).
• Then what?  Well you can be a citizen of the USA, but not really be very engaged in what the USA stands for and is all about.  You can be a free loader and just drift along, only looking on what you can gain from being a citizen of the USA but never thinking about what you can give back.  President John Kennedy once said, “born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage” – and pledged to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty…And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
• What can you do for the kingdom of God more than just exist and live in it as a citizen?  Give back to God’s kingdom by being a servant to others.  Jesus said these words…”But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mat 20:26-28).
• The Apostle Paul went on to expound this…”If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry….Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:1-17).
• So, be a person who lives and works for the Lord, be a person who places others higher than yourself, be a person who knows the Bible and loves to apply it it your life, be a person who is connected to other Christians in the community and in a Bible believing church, and be a person who is thankful.
• Your story, His story.  Which life will it be for you?  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Pro 14:12).  “As for rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life” (1Ti 6:17-19).
• I’ll take his story for me.  I’m so thankful he told me his story, but not just to possess it.  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant…” (Phi 2:3-7).  
• “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write upon him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name” (Rev 3:12).  What about you? If you have never participated in this ministry reach out to us and tell us how we can pray for you and what the Lord is doing in your life.  May the Lord bless you richly today!

Pastor Greg