Show Gratitude for Salvation Through Good Deeds

Our Heavenly Father, we praise and thank you for this time you've given us when we can gather together and spend some time with you. Thank you for all your goodness to us these past months since we last met and we thank you for bringing us to the beginning of a new year and already one couple of months are almost over, you've been so good to us, faithful to us and taking good care of us. We want to offer you our thanks and praise to you, we want to be grateful to you Lord for all your goodness to us.

Bless this time together Lord and help us to think of you and come closer to you and be more challenged to live for you, we ask in Jesus precious name, Amen. It's so nice to see so many of you from different places, some even from India, so happy to see you. It's some months since we last met, you may be wondering what happened in these last months.

It's a long story, the Lord gave us a chance to go to India and we had the 50th anniversary of our CFC church in Bangalore, it was so good, such a blessing, I'm not going to talk about it now, but if you're interested you can look at the YouTube cfcindia.com and then look for 50th anniversary celebration, you may be able to see and it was such a time of blessing and that's what happened in December and January and the Lord gave us chances to visit some of our churches and we were so blessed and uplifted, everybody was blessed, so I praise and thank God and thank God that we can be together again and come to spend some time and think about the Lord, if you remember some months back we were doing some studies on wisdom, godly wisdom and a wise woman, you remember we said that was one, a wise woman builds a house and then in Proverbs 9 verse 1, wisdom has built her house and hewn seven pillars and I did some reference to James chapter 3 verse 17 where it says about wisdom from above, I'm just recollecting what we did, wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good foods, impartial and sincere, we did some of these things and they also said how in Proverbs 31, a wise woman is not afraid of the future, whatever happens she's not at all afraid, that was the last time we met together, so I thought of these qualities pure and peaceable, we did some of them and I thought of them as pillars of wisdom and we did mercy also as one of the pillars and it says a mercy and good foods, so I thought of good foods or good works, I thought we think about that pillar, I mean two parts of it, mercy and good foods and I thought we think about good fruits or good works. First of all, I want to say that the key for wisdom, the foundation for wisdom and the most important thing if we want to be wise, wise women is this verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, is the ABC of wisdom and another translation it says is the foundation of wisdom, we can't build a house, a godly house, godly home without a proper foundation and that foundation should be really strong, not a difficult foundation but it's something we must have, that is the fear of God, it's not that we are like frightened of God, we know what it means, we respect God, we don't want to do anything that will make the Lord unhappy with us, we don't want to hurt the Lord by our actions or do anything, that's what the there's this verse in Ephesians 4 which says Ephesians 4 verse 30 and it says here, don't cause the holy spirit sorrow by the way you live, remember he's the one who marks you to be present on that day when salvation from sin will be complete, big sentence but don't cause the holy spirit sorrow, don't cause sorrow to our Lord, that's the meaning of the fear of the Lord and that's the foundation, we must always make sure that that foundation is strong, if we read some verse in the Bible we don't like and we don't agree with and we say I really don't agree with that, then we should come back to the foundation and respect God's word, if God has said that I'm going to take it, even if it's hurt hurtful, even if I don't like it or it doesn't fit in with my culture or with the present day, whatever it is, if the Lord has said it, I'm going to do it, that's the foundation, respect for God's word and you know talking about good works, I am looking back in my school days, I remember one incident, I must have been about 12 years old, 11 or 12 before I was born again, I studied in a Roman Catholic school and the nuns were very strict but they gave us some good values in our life and so in one of the classes, the teacher gave us a piece of paper like a A4 size paper with squares in it and she said draw a line in the middle, on one side you make a mark of all the good deeds you've done, keep that paper for a whole week, anytime you do a good deed, you put a mark on it and lot of squares were there and the other column was anytime you make a sacrifice, you make a mark on it, you said and she said keep that paper for a week, at the end of the week, you bring that paper and I'll collect it and she gave it to us to do the marking, we didn't have to get it marked by our parents or anyone, she said I can trust you to do it, so that was a new concept for me, I grew up in a family of nine, I'm the oldest of nine kids and there's always lots of things to do being the oldest and my mom and dad would always call me for something or other which I had to do for the others or for them to get them ready for school and time, many things from the time we wake up in the morning till night, there'll be always something which I had to fill in and I had to do for them or for my younger ones, so the sheet of paper, I don't know, I could put in so many marks, anytime I did something, I thought oh yeah, I can make a mark on this and make a mark on this and anytime I did something which I didn't want to do, unwilling to do, I say okay, I'll put it in the second column, I make a sacrifice so quickly in a week, but you know at the end of the week, I felt so uncomfortable, I thought this is not it, I don't want to mark myself that I've been a good girl and I've done this, this, this, this, even though I have not converted, I hadn't accepted the there's something in my heart which made me uneasy, I said I don't want to be doing this for the sake of putting this mark on the sheet of paper, and all these months I did without thinking of it, now I've suddenly, if I move a chair for my brother to sit on, I put a mark for that, and I thought how empty and how unfulfilling that was, even though I have not converted, that spoke to me, I don't want to do that, I look like I was a hypocrite just trying to do, to put a mark on that piece of paper, then after I was born again and I started reading the bible, especially the gospels, things became clearer to me, then I began to see God's not looking at my good deeds to put a mark on his book or anything, he's, he's looking at me, the reason why am I doing these good things, is it for him, is it out of love or is it to get honor for myself and things like that, especially reading the gospels, I, the Lord was speaking to me and not to be a hypocrite, not to do things for the, getting praise from people or to be noticed by others or things like that, everything that we read in the gospels, so the Lord started speaking to me about that and, and kept growing and I said Lord, help me to live a life that is pleasing to you, and now after our CFC churches started, I thought God has been, I realized God is speaking more and more about my inner life, not my outward, my inner life should be pleasing to him, now coming back to the good works, let, I want to talk about the beginning of our Christian life, that is about salvation, when we come to salvation, there's no question of good works at all, we know that, we cannot, can never think of coming to the Lord and say, Lord, I've done this, this, this and, and so I deserve salvation, I deserve to be in your kingdom, I, I can never come to the Lord, which says we know that all our righteousness is as filthy rag, even the best things that we do are like the dirtiest rag, which is fit to be thrown away, people should cannot even, should not even have a desire to even look at it or glance at it, that the best of our good, good things that we can do before we are born again, all our righteousness is as filthy rag and God is not going to look at the good things we have done to make us worthy to receive salvation, that is so different from the concept in other religions, I come from a country where there are so many religions and many of us have seen and maybe that's our background also, where we come, accepted the Lord from other religions and there's one religion which is a predominant religion in our country in India, where everything depends on the, on good deeds, people go from temple to temple and they dip themselves in the water or in the sacred rivers and they think they get cleansed from the forgiveness of their sins and more and more difficult things people do, I know, I think of one particular thing which in our language we call it Urli Seve, Urli Seve means you roll, roll not like a somersault but you roll sideways on the ground and that you serve God and you accept, we get accepted and it's not on a roll on a bed of course or a mattress or anything, they roll in the temple, in a temple where in a spot where people throw the garbage, all the leftover food, our disposable plates are banana leaves, so people eat out of the banana leaves and wash their hands in that spot and the food wastes are thrown there and they wash their mouth and spit in that place, so devout people of that religion, they take a vow that they're going to roll in that spot and they roll and roll and roll and their clothes are filled with all that sputum and all that thing and they think that God is going to accept them because they have done that Urli Seve, of course after they've done that they'll take a shower and they'll throw off the dirty clothes but they feel as if God has seen them do that thing and like that more and more difficult things people in that religion do and they think they can forgiveness of, they can get forgiveness of sin and we come to the Lord and we think Lord and when we give the gospel to such people and we say we can accept Jesus, can get forgiveness of sins, if we just repent, they don't like to hear it, they think what do you mean I can get free salvation after all the things that I've done, salvation is free and I just do nothing and just accept it, it doesn't look sound to me, doesn't look fair, why should I get anything free, I must pay for it at least a little bit, at least some money I must give to get that salvation, people have that mentality because we are so proud, we don't want to get anything free and we think that we deserve something, we deserve forgiveness of sins if we can do give some money or some do some good deed but the Lord Jesus, he paid the prices, he paid the price for our salvation, he came to this earth, lived as a man, the king of glory and God of creation came down as a man and lived like you and me and people didn't accept him, people scoffed and mocked him and he lived a life helping others and all along he knew he is going to give pardon for our sins by his death, that death on the cross, that cruel death, he is going to give pardon for us and he said and he decided to go through it all so that you and I can get forgiveness for our sins, praise God for that salvation he has given us and we can do nothing to earn our salvation but just receive that forgiveness of sins and we know those of us who have not accepted the Lord or not sure of salvation, it is as simple as ABC, A, accept that the fact that we are sinners and we need a savior, accept Jesus, believe in Jesus that he died for our sins, see, confess our sins to him, as simple as that but so many people they come at the very gate of heaven and they don't want to go beyond that, they find that it's so difficult to give up, to accept that way of salvation and also some of us who maybe we are backslidden and we need to come back to the Lord and we say, Lord I've gone so far away from you, help me to come back, in the same way I came to you in the beginning, help me to repent, accept the forgiveness which you offer me, accept salvation and come to you even if we are backslidden, you know John the Baptist he said, if you really repent you must bring forth fruit of repentance, you must show that you have repented, stop doing the things that you used to do before, people who are stealing, stop stealing, people who are telling lies, ask God for help to stop telling lies, exaggerating is a form of lying, getting angry, ask the Lord, Lord help me to get rid of my temper, like John the Baptist said, bring forth fruit of repentance, we thank God that we can come to a church where we can be encouraged to bring forth fruit of repentance and purify ourselves, but you know many churches after the person is born again, they say now that you're born again, you can just, you're a child of God, you're ready, you never get lost, gates are open, gates of heaven are open and you're safe in God's kingdom, all that you have, you don't have to worry about anything because Jesus did it all, he's our righteousness, you don't even have to try to be good, we are clothed in his righteousness, it's true we are clothed in his righteousness, but they say now you don't have to do anything and some churches say now what you have to do is give out some tracts and bring people to the Lord or witness or share your testimony with others and they all this outward activity, that's enough, that's what God wants, but we know that it's not that, if you read the gospels and epistles, you know especially everything that's written in the new testament and the words of Jesus, we know that there's much more than that, we just can't accept Jesus and they think Lord you've done it all, I don't know, I don't need to do anything, our true life begins after we are really born again, we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, I think of the example of the eyes, our eyes you know, we use our eyes to look at things and we see things, we read and we focus on things, at the same time while we are doing that there's a process going on in our eyes, the tears are just washing our eyes, washing and washing and washing, any speck, any dust, anything is there, the tears keep washing and washing, that's the little bit, a small example of what our Christian life should be, always there's a cleansing going on in our inner life, cleansing and cleansing, forgiveness and judging ourselves and we do something for the Lord, so I want to talk a little bit of the first category, the work which the Lord wants us to do, wants to do within us first of all and then a little bit of the work which God wants us to do outward for the others, we allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, there are some verses which I want to share with you, if you look at Romans 8 verse 26 it says, the Holy Spirit works within us, helps us, intercedes for us, the Holy Spirit does the work, the Holy Spirit won't force his way into our hearts and say look you have to do this, I need to cleanse you, I need to wash you, come scrub you, no, we might do that to our children but the Holy Spirit is gentle, is a gentle spirit and we allow him, we say I need to you Holy Spirit of God, I need to you Lord and he comes in and keeps on cleansing us, forgiving us, washing us, he brings to light, look the way you spoke the other day, you spoke in the morning to somebody, the way you spoke to your children, you sounded irritated, you were angry, even though you covered it up, there was irritation, there was anger, I want you to change, I'll help you to change and get rid of that anger, even a simple thing like suppose, I was many times I was thinking of examples like this, when I take a cup of coffee and it spills accidentally and I'm the one who spilled it, I feel upset about it but not so upset, I went down and clean it and wipe it and all that and I say okay, I should be careful next time but if somebody else were to spill it and that cup of coffee, it's a different feeling that comes in, you should have been more careful, you should have held the cup with both hands and we get annoyed and even if we are doing or sometimes we say you have to clean it, you spilled it, you have to clean it but if we are good enough and say no, I'll clean it but inside there's a irritation and say not the same way when we did it when somebody else does it in a so judgmental way, those are simple little things but the holy spirit speaks, look at the way you react when somebody else does it, have your patience with yourself like that throughout the day, if we are sensitive to the holy spirit, he keeps on telling and speaking to us, this is there's a better way, you don't have to speak in that way, there's a better way, there's a kinder way, there's a more polite way and there's you can do it a little differently, you can do it with a smile, not a forced smile, you can do it with without anger, you can do it with forgiveness, you can do it with mercy, you can do it in a different way, that's how the holy spirit keeps working in our hearts working and when we yield our lives to the holy spirit after we are born again, then it's a life of works, there's work a lot of works to do after we are born again until when we accept the lord and we want to receive salvation, all we have to do is believe and repent and accept the gift of salvation but after we're born again, there's always work to do lord purify me, lord cleanse me, not just end of the day, just before we go to sleep, we look back and we say I did this, I did this, lord forgive me, not just that, when we are sensitive to the work of the holy spirit, immediately we feel oh why did I say like that, why did I think like that, sometimes we think of something which happened in the past, maybe somebody has hurt us or said something rude to us and that thought comes up and the devil is so clever, it keeps on bringing that thought, we did this to you, she did this to you, she spoke to you or she didn't do this, she didn't even speak in a nice way and the devil keeps reminding us and then immediately say oh I don't want to keep that dirty thought in my mind, this judgmental, this unforgiving thought, this bad attitude, lord I don't want, I want to be a child, I want to be loving and forgiving as you are lord Jesus, as you were on earth, I want to be like you, I don't want to have that thought in my mind, this bad attitude about anyone and so that cleansing and repentance throughout the day, like the tears which wash our eyes, washing and washing and washing and cleansing keeps on going if we walk in the light and another verse I want to share in this connection is in we all know that verse Romans 12 1, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, in the old testament the sacrifices were dead sacrifices, the priest had to cut the neck, the artery of the animal and spill the blood and sprinkle the blood around and then cut up the animal into pieces and put it on the altar and burn the whole thing, the person who brought the sacrifice brought it to the priest and the priest had to do it but in the new testament after all that is over for us it's a living sacrifice, every day we bring our living bodies to the lord and say lord here I am, I place my body on the altar, my eyes, I don't want to read anything or look at anything, it displeases you, my speech, my tongue and my mouth, I don't want to say anything, I offer it to you, I don't want to say anything that will make you sad, every part of my body, my mind, my heart, I don't want to be unloving from my heart towards anybody, I don't want to do anything which is bad with my hand or write any bad letter or hurtful thing, I want to write in a good way, do good things, good things for others, helpful deeds for others, every part of our body, I don't want to go any place where you don't want me to go, for us it's easy for us, we can just take up the car and drive, you know in the olden days we had to take, we had to walk and go to see someone, but lord I don't want to go any place, I don't want to buy anything that you don't want me to buy, I don't want to do anything which will make you unhappy, that's a living sacrifice and there's a beautiful verse in Leviticus 6.13 which I read recently, it says that Leviticus 6.13 the fire should be burning always on the altar, it should never go out, the lord told the priest, there should always be a fire, it's so precious for us, lord let the fire in my altar be always burning, there'll be a continual sacrifice of myself on the altar, your holy spirit should keep on burning in my heart and I won't be consumed, but that burning should be always in my heart, that was a challenge for me, then another verse I want to share is in 1st Corinthians 6.19, we know that was our bodies are the temple of the holy spirit, the holy spirit is dwelling in our heart after we come to the lord and a temple should be always kept clean, no defilement should be in this temple, our body should be kept pure for the lord, then we know all the other verses which the lord taught us about our life, how Jesus said you cannot be my disciple unless you take up the cross, deny yourself daily, die to yourself daily, that's in Luke 9 verse 23, nobody can do it to us, nobody can say here's the cross, come on lie down, I'm going to crucify you, we ourselves we take up the cross and we deny ourselves, we do it voluntarily, we're not forced to, even Jesus doesn't compel us, but we do it voluntarily and we take up the cross and there's a beautiful verse in Philippians 2 verse 12, it says God is at work within us, God is at work within us, he's always doing, it's not that we are doing, he is helping us, it's sometimes it's so difficult for us, but we can get strength from the lord, the lord is working, he's at work within us, and at the same time it says work out your own salvation, so they'll allow the lord to work within us and strengthen us and give us that desire to do God's will, to die to ourselves, allow the lord to, so much about the inner working within us, but sometimes we think like gospel or the teaching in our church is always inward looking, looking at ourselves, looking at ourselves, purifying ourselves and just inward looking, people sometimes blame us and say like your church you're always looking inward, you don't seem to have anything outward, whereas other churches they are focusing on outward things and giving out gospel and so at the same time as we as a worker of the Holy Spirit is going, working within us, there's a work which we need to do outward, good deeds that we need to do and we should both, both those are important, just like the left hand and the right hand, both hands are important, on one hand we are judging ourselves, as we read in first Corinthians 11 about the breaking of bread, we judge ourselves and we are ready for the lord's coming, if we judge ourselves, we will not be judged on the final day, at the same time just like the right hand, we live a life that is born to bless others, in James 1 it says, James 2 verse 26, it says faith without works is dead, if we just have faith and we don't do anything, we just live for ourselves is dead, there's no use of that faith and in James 1 verse 22, it says be a doer of the word, not just a hearer, there's another verse which I want to share that is in Matthew 5 verse 14, Jesus said our light, our life should be, our light should shine, our life should be like a light for all to see, like a city set on a hill, everybody should see that light, our life should, our testimony should be that in such a way that everybody will see, it's not for them to praise us, they'll praise our father in heaven, our life should be, we should live life in such a way that we bring glory and honor to God, not for ourselves, then there's another verse which I want to share in this connection and that is in Hebrews 6 verse 1, it says we have to repent of dead works, now I used to wonder what is dead works, dead works I've heard my husband say and we've heard in our churches, dead works are good works but we've done with the wrong motive, if we do any type of good work and we think oh somebody must see this or I must get a reward for that, then that good work becomes a dead work, it's of no use, God is not going to give us anything for such a word, so that's a searching thought that we should always repent of any kind of dead works which we are doing in our, which comes on it, I made a list of all the some of the things that um guide us about this good works, you know I was thinking of this doing good works, I was thinking of the life of Jesus, how he lived on earth, his whole life was to do good to others, he said I came to earth not to do my own will but to do the will of the father and throughout his life he never got tired of doing good for other people, even if it's late at the night, late into the night or day after day, he loved to do good to others, I was thinking of some incidents in my life not for any boast but I can say some days when I used when I was working in that lonely mission hospital, where I was the only doctor there and some days people would come and because it is a charity hospital, a lot of poor people would come for treatment or for checkup and I knew it was a busy day and I start the work early seeing people especially most of them were ladies, I'd see specialized in looking at ladies, taking care of ladies and most of them were leprosy patients and this figure one after the other one after the other and I'd see and by 10 o'clock I thought like I'm getting a little tired and I go out and peep out of the my room to see and there'd be still a crowd of people waiting, waiting with eagerness to come and get some help, some comfort and then the Lord would encourage me and say don't get weary of doing good, these people have come because there's some need, because they want some help, they want some cure, they want some word of comfort from you, don't get weary of doing good to these people, they are poor, they are not able to pay anything, do it out of love for me and that often used to come to my mind many times and I think like I've had enough, I can't do anymore and then I look out and then the word of Jesus, the word of the Lord will come, don't get weary of doing good and that's the word which often comfort comes to me, don't get weary of doing good, we sisters in the church, mothers, that's the word which can come encourage us, never don't get weary of doing good, we can do good only as long as we are alive, when the Lord calls us home there's no more opportunity and there's no need to do good, we'll be with the Lord forever and ever, right here on this earth, we are his hands, we are his mouth, we are his mind, he can speak through us to bless others, he can use our hands to help others and that word often comes to me when don't get weary of doing good, be patient, keep on doing good, the time will come when you can't work, Jesus said the time will come when night is over and there's no more time to do good to others and sometimes when I used, when my children were small, I used to teach them their lessons, I remember times like and those days I didn't realize that I needed to use glasses, my eyesight was getting weaker and weaker and I should have gone and got my eyes checked and got a pair of glasses, but I was trying and you know sometimes in India there's a power outage, especially because of the population, there's not enough electricity, so they'd stagger, some days there'd be power outage on Tuesdays, there's no light, no electricity, another area on Wednesdays, so they'd rotate and sometimes we'd put these battery lamps and I'd sit and try to teach them and my eyesight was not good and I wanted to teach my children subjects like which are difficult for them, my subject which I had to teach was biology and I liked that subject but and it was not easy for them to understand all the tissues and the cells and the chromosomes and the DNA and all that and I was trying to teach them that and I wish that they could understand and then they could focus on what I was trying to teach and then this word would come to me, don't get weary of teaching them, they're going to be thankful to you that you spent time teaching them patiently, I'm so glad that the Lord encouraged me, you know sometimes I'll think like I wish there would be a day when I'll just take a book and lock myself up in a room and just spend the time in bed and read the book and have something to drink and but then I realized that's not the thought which I should have at this time, even if it's late into the night, don't get weary of helping my children in their studies and I'm glad the Lord used to encourage me and and they stuck with me and I stuck with them and they did their lessons and after the time their school days were over, their college days were over and I am thankful and they are also thankful for the time that I spent with so don't get weary of doing good, that's the encouragement we can have that we when we are born after we are born again we are not going to live for ourselves or for our pleasure, we are created for his workmanship, it says for his pleasure we are created as we sing in that song to give him pleasure and to make other people happy. I just thought I'll just run through some of the things which we have just been talking about and then I'll pick up some other things also which came to my mind, first of all to for salvation we can do nothing to deserve salvation, it's not a works, if it were dependent on works in Ephesians 2 8 to 10 we read by grace I saved through faith and not of works lest any man should boast, if salvation dependent on any work which I had to do like I had to do such and such a thing to get salvation then we had be boasting and say because I did this I got salvation, because I've been a good girl from my childhood I got salvation, sometimes we are tempted to think yeah because I had a godly home or because I've been good for my childhood or because of such and such such and such and such my godly parents I got salvation, no it's nothing to do with that, nothing to do with any of our works or it's just the grace of God, by grace we are saved and we should never forget that, Lord I'm nobody, I'm just a sinner saved by grace, I don't deserve anything from you, all that I deserve is help, but by your grace you've saved me, we should never forget that, by grace we are saved, we shall never boast on anything that we have done, till today we should not boast on anything that we have done to deserve any goodness from God, Lord I prayed, Lord I fasted, I prayed for so many years for my son to get converted and he's still not converted, maybe my prayer you'll accept that prayer and you know it's not like that at all, it's just by grace, nothing to do with us, ourselves, but we should not stop praying for them, you should not think that now I'm because it's all grace I'm not going to, that's another extreme that people think it's all God's responsibility, I'm not going to pray, we have to do our part in praying for our loved ones and claim and say Lord just like you said in that parable, even if it's late at night I'm going to keep on knocking and asking you and that verse which I shared some time before, those who love the Lord don't rest and don't give God any rest till you see the answer to your prayer, keep on asking and then God will answer that prayer and our good deeds are not for people to see or to get praise that's what the Lord said, we can do good deeds and we can think people must praise me that I've been a good person and I'm such a kind person, we should not do it for praise of people, we should not do it for out of envy or so and so did that so I'm going to do that out of jealousy, oh why should she be the one to do it, why should she be the one to do this program or this event, why shouldn't I, why couldn't I be the one or why could I be the one to supply this food, why couldn't I be the one to do whatever good things we want to do, good and our good deeds should never be done out of jealousy or envy, that's what we read in James 3, wisdom from above is not jealous and wisdom from below is jealous and where there's jealousy there's every evil work it says that in James chapter 3, so we should not do out of jealousy or envy and we should not do it in a legalistic way like I did it because I did this I deserve something, we should not do it out of competition, oh I must do better than that person, we should not do any good deeds for gain for ourselves, oh because I did this I'm going to get this from that person, I gave her a birthday present so she's going to give me a better present, no we should do good, it says here it is a beautiful verse in Matthew 25 verse 40, let me read that verse, yeah the Lord said verse 35, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me, the righteous will answer Lord when did we do all this and the king will say truly I said to you to the extent that you did to one of these brothers of mine even the least of them you did it to me, so many times I think like we attempted to do good to people who are well off and who can return goodness to us but the Lord says do it to people, do goodness to people who are not able to repay, who are the least of God's children and that's why many times when I especially in India when I go there and I meet our poor sisters I think these are the people I must be good to, not the rich people in the rich churches, these poor sisters who have, who cannot do anything in return for me, their smile is my reward, following the Lord that is my reward if I do it to the least of these people then I'm doing it as unto the Lord, that's the motive for which I should be, Lord not for any glory or gain but do it as unto you because you said if you do it to the least of my people I'll do it unto you, then there's another verse which says which is in Matthew 24 it says Matthew 24 verse 45 that's also a beautiful verse verse 45 who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time a person a servant of the Lord who's faithful and sensible he when the Lord comes he'll find him giving the household giving his children the food and giving them their food or taking care of them at the proper time truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions blessed is that some slave whom his father finds whom his master finds so doing when he comes when the Lord comes he must find us taking care of his children giving them spiritual food earthly I mean physical food I mean not just physical food helping them at the proper time when the Lord comes he must find us serving his household then the Lord himself will reward will reward us reward is not from people is from the Lord but when he comes he must find us doing this thing and there's another verse which says in I think time is running out another beautiful verse which I want to say is um about good verses in Revelation 19 it says the bride of Christ makes herself ready when we we want we want to be ready for the Lord's coming the bride of Christ makes herself ready it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen bright and clean of course we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ but this linen is this wedding dress which we are weaving is the righteous acts of the saints the righteous things that we are doing is our wedding dress can you imagine dear sister we are making our wedding dress for our bride when we meet our bridegroom our Lord Jesus Christ God is giving us a chance to make a wedding dress ready and what is that wedding dress our righteous deeds the good deeds that we are doing good deeds that we are doing not to show people or to get a reward from earth or to get praise from people or to be noticed by others the righteous deeds to his poor children who can give us nothing in return for which we are doing unto him for his eyes to see not for people to see but for the Lord to see which we do in secret not for public display we do it secretly in the meekness and in humility where only he can see it and the person who receives it may not even know who's the one who did this for for me that's a glorious way of doing it we do something say I wonder who did this for me I wonder who did and nobody need to know but the Lord has seen us and rewards us God has given us many opportunities to do things like that in secret I mean not just like giving a bouquet of flowers and nobody knows that's a good thing but or to send a card anonymous card no but kind deeds in secret if the floor needs to be swept and the floor is dirty nobody need to know that I'm the one who swept it and cleaned it if the we were washed nobody need to know that I was the one who washed the dishes and put it away or something had to be done or I see that something had it needed to be done and I do it but nobody should know that I needed the secret deeds that is the wedding dress the Lord has given us a chance to do and the Lord who sees us in secret will reward us oh there's so much more about the righteous deeds people are in my heart but the time is up but the Lord will give you give us all the opportunities to read from his word the righteous deeds that we can do in secret and before him not for the other people to see but he's pleased with our lives and he's pleased so may the Lord help us to have this we have this abundance of good deeds he says rich in mercy and rich in good deeds that's what James 3 says plenty of good deeds and plenty of mercy may the Lord grant us that desire and opportunities to do plenty especially for God's needy children any time he anyone needs help may the Lord find us raise our hands say Lord here I am send me here I am Lord I am ready night or day I'm willing to do it not to get praise from people but to please you and make you happy and and the Lord takes account of it he makes he keeps an account of all that we have done and he'll reward us his reward is with him even if we don't get any reward from him the very fact that we are saved and we have a place in God's kingdom even if it's in the edge of the heavenly kingdom at least I have a seat a place in God's kingdom Lord that's more than enough for me I don't want a big throne or a big mansion just a little corner you've given for me I'm more than thankful for that Lord I don't deserve anything but your love is so great your goodness on earth has been so great you've done so much for me what can I do for you in return but I love you and I'll try to do good for your children and that's more than enough for me so may the Lord help us and help us to grow in good deeds and grow in mercy God bless you all shall we close in prayer our heavenly father there's so much which you have done for us our hearts are so full of gratitude and thankfulness for all that you've done for us and the least that we can do is to live a life that is pleasing to you and a life that will bless others help us not to be stingy in those things Lord help us to be ready ready to show our gratitude to you and ready to do good to others and not to count the cost Lord you didn't count the cost when you came to earth and die for us that that great sacrifice that you made for us help us also not to count the cost in doing good to others and we know that you give us a lot of opportunities on earth and as long as we are alive as long as we are have health and strength we want to do that for you Lord and for your children and please give us grace to do that faithfully Lord bless each of us each of the sisters who are here and give us strength Lord each one of us help us in our daily situations sometimes life is so difficult for some of us and the sickness poverty financial difficulties so many things we face but Lord we thank you your grace is sufficient you will help us Lord through all these circumstances to be more than conquerors to be pleasing to you without any complaint always be thankful to you grant us your help Lord to be faithful to you thank you Lord we present ourselves as living sacrifices to you help us to be faithful to you till the very end we ask these things in Jesus precious name Amen