MY LIFE VERSE -- Devotional for July 19, from "Good Seeds"

We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. (Romans 15:1)

When I was twelve years old I attended a Bible Camp, no doubt right around this time of year. Actually I went to camp every summer, but I remember that particular year as the time when I dedicated my life to the Lord for Christian service. In those days churches and camps had a lot more public appeals at the end of the meetings than they typically do today. These “invitations” urged listeners to examine their lives, and if some heart work needed to be done, to come down to the front to make a public profession of a personal need. A lot of kids “went forward,” but I always held back. I remember my inner struggle every time there was an invitation: “I suppose I should go down. Look, everyone else is. What’s the matter with me? But it’s so embarrassing! Besides, what would I be confessing?” And so, I didn’t go, even though it made me feel spiritually inferior to my friends. But then came that particular July day at Hume Lake Bible Camp when the speaker said, “I’m talking to you Christian kids now: have you thought about God’s will for your life? Do you want to be prepared for what He has prepared for you to do?” Well, that made sense to me. This was an invitation I could respond to. Indeed, I could go forward and no one would mistake it as a first time decision for Christ, for I had done that when I was four years old at my mother’s knee, and had been baptized at age seven. Of course I didn’t know that God would be calling me into full time Christian ministry – all I knew then was that I wanted to make myself totally available to Him for however He chose to use me, and I wasn’t ashamed to say so publicly. So I broke my altar call boycott and went forward! That night in my cabin I got alone with God and my Bible and found Romans 15:1. This would be my life verse, I thought. It just reached out and grabbed me – well, God did, through the pen of the apostle Paul. And the next two verses bring the point home: “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached Thee fell upon Me.’” Now today, July 19th, is a day I would normally want a little extra attention – after all, it is my birthday! But God tells me to climb outside of myself by bearing the weaknesses of others (and that includes bearing with weak brothers!). Ministers of God must be like Jesus: 1) Prepared to serve, “not to be served” (Matthew 20:28); 2) Ready to suffer. People don’t know any better way to reject God than to shoot His messengers. Is this what I signed up for when I was twelve years old? I guess so. It’s a harder verse to live up to than I thought back in those innocent days.