So much more is expected...

There's been a 2 week crusade at our church that started last friday and will end next sabbath. Last night's sermon has really put the tone on the rest of the year. I felt spoken to directly. The pastor is Pastor Randy Skeet, and that man is anointed of God, he has probably read the Bible like 50 times over because he recites it and other good literature as if it is imprinted in his mind. Yesterday the title of the sermons was, "why is the first commandment first?"and the scripture reading was from Gen 25:29-34 (the story of Esau selling his birthright to his younger brother Jacob)

Some lessons that I gathered from the sermon last night are:

• Do not allow temporal "needs" come between  those things that are supposed to be 
• your most valuable possession
• Do not take advantage of others. God takes this personally.
• DO NOT HELP GOD! Just trust Him to do what's best for you.
• Whomever/ whatever directs your life & choices becomes your god/ God (you need to decide carefully)
• When God commissions you to do something, don't give excuses, just DO IT, He will enable you. Ex 4:10-17
• You must not fear that you'll lose something from being obedient to God, if you do lose it, then that thing was not worth having to even begin with.
• The tendencies of the natural heart of the natural heart are downward so you have to make a conscious decision to choose God.
• You need to determine in your heart who your God is , because it is that God that will help you in the time of the end. 

At some point he was speaking of education as he was talk ing about the events of Daniel 1 and the determination of the 4 hebrew boys to hold firm to the teachings of their parents and how much more is expected of me as a child of God, i cannot be mediocre simply because I'm a child of God, there's a certain level of excellence that God EXPECTS.

And so the tone was set.

God will help me. As I remember why the first commandment was made first.