Pastor John,
Tonight’s message that we are to —bring our best—be our best—do our best— unto the Lord was good. It felt like a different way of looking at things and explaining them, too.
There is a “Pearl” that went out a couple of years ago that says something like, “God never said for you to do your best.” That doesn’t contradict tonight’s message at all. That old Pearl means… don’t try to please God by being the best YOU when Jesus paid the price for you to be a HOLY reflection of HIM.
We can “do” our best at anything that we do, and the effort mean nothing more than that we are too self-willed or too proud to appear less than excellent. But for us to “be” our best before the Lord, for that, we have to submit to the Lord’s purging and willfully purge ourselves (as Brother Jimmy once said) of whatever isn’t Jesus. The nature of God that remains after that will only do its best in everything, because everything it does is unto the Lord. In that condition, we can be a flop, sound terrible, present terribly, whatever, and still be perfect.
It just felt like a different, right way of looking at things tonight.
Jerry