“Are you listening to me?” the mother asks her disobedient child as she corrects him for the third time in as many minutes. “Are you listening?”
Certainly the child heard her voice, but now comes the choice. Will the child heed and obey those words …or ignore them?
That choice challenges you in your faith walk every day. Free will is a basic concept in our Christian faith. Our Heavenly Father gives us the choice. He desires children who choose to love and obey Him as He calls our names. Just as the first man and woman faced the choice of obedience, we also must choose between God’s way and our own.
When God speaks, do you listen?
Jesus taught his followers through stories or parables. At the end of a tale, He would often say, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” It was His way of asking, “Are you listening? Did you hear what I said? Are you going to take My words to heart and put them into action in your life?”
In countless ways each day, God is calling every Christian to put their faith and desire to obey Him into action. We are not simply to be hearers of the Word, but doers, listening and acting in obedience to God’s commands (James 1:22).
Across our state, North Carolina Baptists are listening—and obeying. We have heard Christ’s call to serve the needs of our world, both physically and spiritually through the missions and ministries supported by the North Carolina Missions Offering.
Changed lives result from hearts responding to the missions education efforts of Woman’s Missionary Union. North Carolina Baptist Men are ahead of schedule on rebuilding their new goal of 700 hurricane-ravaged homes in Gulfport, Mississippi. Church planters started 88 new churches in North Carolina last year, providing believers from diverse cultures with a fellowship in which to grow, mature, and bear fruit for the kingdom. Convention areas of special ministries, chaplaincy, associational missions, and others are all responding to the needs placed before them.
These are the ministries that receive primary support through the North Carolina Missions Offering, ministries born in response to Jesus’ telling us to meet the physical and spiritual needs of our neighbors.
Are you praying…with a burden on your heart to reach the lost and with a desire to help those in spiritual or physical need?
Are you teaching…and making disciples who will bear witness of Jesus Christ and act in faithful obedience in future generations?
Are you going…and ministering in Jesus’ name, starting in your own community and extending to the most remote places on earth, becoming personally involved in meeting the needs of others?
Are you giving…sacrificially to God through His church so the name of Jesus may be carried to people everywhere?
Are you listening to the Lord?
The 2007 North Carolina Missions Offering and Week of Prayer theme, “Are You Listening,” challenges us to listen to the words of our Lord and take the necessary steps to put our faith into action.
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has been and continues to be a partner with local churches, Baptist associations, national and international missions organizations in response to our Acts 1:8 mandate. How can you be part of the work?
Listen and obey.