Gtcotr/ws122822
There is something powerful about “Last Words.” First impressions are important but last impressions are lasting impressions. Last words matter because Last words last …
How a life or a journey begins does not tell the whole story. Rather, as with each movie, we judge a life or a relationship or even a holiday on how it ends. The highest honors are most often reserved not for how a person lives their life but rather for how a person gives their life.
During
the year 2022, our year of reconnect at GTCOTR, our Church Family has been 100%
responsible for:
·
The
monthly sponsorship and care of 91 children in various places around the world.
·
Fed
more than 50,000 meals in East Africa through our KE Resources Kenyan Outreach.
·
Supplied
doctors and medicines for various medical campaigns.
·
Assisted
in supplying over 700,000 meals in India.
·
Reached
out to our surrounding communities in Southeast Texas with over 300 Turkeys to
needy families for Thanksgiving.
·
Distributed
toys to children in Port Arthur for Christmas.
·
Helped
to drill just over 50 water wells around the globe.
·
Built
10 new houses at the Gioto Dump site along with the very first public toilet
ever in their 51-year history.
·
Blessed
our local communities with everything from Christmas Fest to VBA.
· We saw lives changed, people encouraged, and needs met in so many ways throughout the year. More than 100 people embarked on mission trips from our Church. Thanks be unto God! All glory to Him!
What we do for Jesus matters. You make an eternal difference in the lives of so many. From Russia to Mexico, from Thailand to Kenya, and from India to Southeast Texas, every day you spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to hearts and homes. Thank you for a year of reconnecting with the family.
2022
has not been easy but it has been a productive year for our Church.
Before we end 2022 and draw our final conclusions, let’s look at some of the last words in the Bible to see if we can discover a model to follow.
When I think of one Bible character who had a hard life my mind runs to Job. At almost any point in the 42 chapters of Job, a person could stop and have a reason to be sad for Job. However, the difficulties he faced for years was not the last word in his life. What was his last word?
Job 42
15 In all the land were found
no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave
them an inheritance among their brothers.
16 After this Job lived one
hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four
generations.
17 So Job died, old and full of days.
What put Job on his road to a better day? His attitude and his decision to not let trouble and problems be his last word. Job acted like the man he wanted to be instead of the way life and others described him. He defined himself instead of letting his disappointments define him.
Job 42
10 And the LORD restored
Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as
much as he had before.
11 Then all his brothers, all
his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him
and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for
all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece
of silver and each a ring of gold.
12 Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning …
Job decided his future and acted like the person he wanted to be instead of the way others saw him.
Another person I think about when I think about not allowing the problems of life or any one moment have the last word is the Apostle Paul. If you are familiar with his life and ministry, you know how many things he suffered. He was beaten numerous times, shipwrecked, jailed, stoned, run out of town after town, maligned, threatened, distrusted, betrayed and even lost his best friend over an argument. Paul was acquainted with hardship. When he was about 62 years old and in prison in Rome under Nero waiting to have his head chopped off, we hear an account from Luke which constitutes the last words in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles:
Acts 28
30 ¶ And Paul dwelt two whole
years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
That’s
not the picture of a prisoner who has been defeated by life but a man who is
living in victory. Why? Listen to what we consider Paul’s last words which he
writes to Timothy from this Roman prison:
2 Timothy 4:22 The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.
Paul is definitely not your ordinary condemned prisoner. He is an encourager who prays for the grace of God to be with Timothy. Paul’s last words are meant to encourage us all. And we never hear from him again!
The last word in Psalms also gives the upbeat message which runs through the entirety of the Bible:
Psalms 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!
Even the last words of the Apocalypse leaves us with a word of hope and encouragement:
Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
As 2022 comes to a close, without respect as to how the year unfolded for you personally, professionally or politically, perhaps we could harness our hurts and focus our hopes on a better and brighter day for next year. Let’s not be defined by what we have seen in the past but rather let’s begin speaking grace and leave others with some better last words than perhaps the past deserves. Our future depends on us not on our problems.
What if the words you speak to others today are the last words they hear? Would you want them to be words of hope or words of hurt? How do you want to be remembered and how do you want your last words to be?
I pray grace and peace be multiplied to you in the coming year and may the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen!
Next
Wednesday evening we will begin a new series, a study on the life of Joseph,
from the book of Genesis.
