General Petraeus

This Wednesday night begins the feast of Rosh Ha Shannah, or Yom Teruah — the Feast of Trumpets. At the end of the summer the Hebrews are commanded to blow the shofar — the ram’s horn, all day long. The sound of the shofar was a sound of alarm — it told the people to get ready. It marked in the calendar that the summer harvest was over and the day of atonement was near and it was time to stand before God.

The feast of Trumpets is amazingly prophetic. Right now we are in the midst of the great harvest and the next major event is the sound of the trumpet — just before the great day of the Lord. Within the feast of trumpets contains a personal message for us. It’s God’s wake up call: We don’t have forever! We only walk through this life once — and as quickly as steam rises from hot water and quickly disappears, so it is with our lives. Soon it will be past and we will stand before our Maker. If we are going to do great things for Him — now is the time! If we need to repent for anything — now is the time. The Lord commands us to arise and shine and let our light shine throughout the world! The shofar is sounding, the summer harvest is nearing completion, and the day of the Lord is near.

Become God’s shofar, sound His warning of judgment and radiate the love He’s given us through His Son, that those around you will be able to stand pure before God!

I came across this very powerful story about one of the most influential men of God in my life, D.L.Moody, in a book named A Call to Excellence by Gary Inrig.

A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.

Walking the dormitory halls that night, Moody saw the shoes and determined not to embarrass his brothers. He mentioned the need to some ministerial students who were there, but met with only silence or pious excuses. Moody returned to the dorm, gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, the world’s only famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.

When the foreign visitors opened their doors the next morning, their shoes were shined. They never knew by whom. Moody told no one, but his friend told a few people, and during the rest of the conference, different men volunteered to shine the shoes in secret.

Wow. I’m humbled, how about you? Many of us want to be great ministers for the Lord. We want our names and our works to be remembered. But let’s never forget the true ministry of the Lord. Not only would have Jesus shined those shoes in secret, He would have returned to wash their feet too!

Have you been asking the Lord to use you? Here you have it! Shine some one’s dingy shoes, give a gift to someone in need, love on someone hard to love — but don’t tell the world — do it in secret! You can be sure that the Lord sees these things! And He will open up more opportunities for you to do even greater things for Him! Guess what — there’s so much work to be done!

by George Whitten, Editor of Worthy Devotions