Autumn harvest is a time for gratitude

Happy autumn to all. May the Lord bless each of you through the season we affectionately call Harvest.

Many of you may recall an old favorite song “Servant of All.” The lyrics are, “If you want to be great, in God’s Kingdom, learn to be a servant of all.”

Another great old favorite is “Make Me a Servant” the lyrics of which are, “Make me a servant, humble and meek, Lord let me lift up, those who are weak, and may the prayer of my heart always be, make me a servant, make me a servant, make me a servant today.”

You might ask what these two songs have in common with Harvest, one word: gratitude. Gratitude for what the Lord has done for us. This truth should cause us to want to be like Him, to be an imitator of Christ, to example such an awesome life. Once you take the time as a Christian to consider the Scriptures Galatians 2:20 and Romans 6:3-4, we then begin to refocus from the glorification of death (Oct. 31) to the recognition through the death of one many shall live.

In a devotion written by Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest: Jan. 15 entitled “Do you walk in the white?” He’s referring to a white funeral he says, “No one enters into this experience of entire sanctification without going through a ‘white funeral’ — the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision.”

He asks the question, “Have you come to your last days really? You have come to them often in sentiment, but have you come to them really?” As we refocus on Christ’s death on the cross it drives us to our knees in gratitude, and as we are driven to our knees in gratitude we are driven to sacrifice our own lives for the work of the Gospel. Here I am Lord, send me, make me a servant, just like Thee.

Pat Propster is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of Carson City.