Well, I showed up today to speak to ladies at a monthly breakfast in SE Bakersfield. And God showed up too. For my part, the things I can see and know, God answered prayer. I was not nervous; no, not at all! I’m not used to being in front of people so I don’t have that practiced smoothness, but my voice didn’t quaver and my knees kept placidly in place; no bouncing around. Pretty boring…no, it was great!

For the other things we asked God about, those remain to be seen. But I trust He was at work in the ladies as much as He was at work in me. We live by faith! I do my part; God does His. The getting us to do our part is actually more difficult than God doing His part….

And that was a part of the theme for my talk today. It was interesting that I had the ideas forming even before I agreed to speak. Typically, the talk took shape as I wrote out what I would say (my writing, and I guess my speaking too, seems to take on its own life as I type), and rewrote, and rewrote, ad infinitum…well, almost. I had to stop rewriting because I had to get my “script” to Maria so she could familiarize herself with it so she could translate into Spanish! Otherwise I might have been rewriting up until this morning.

Being willing to do whatever God puts in your road and nudges you toward, even though you’d prefer to make a wide berth around it, is the crux of serving God with all your heart. The ‘all your heart’ (and soul and mind and strength) part is key. Shadow serving, like shadow boxing, is wasted effort. God sees through it and people can too. I can’t afford to waste my efforts; I don’t have enough energy for that, neither physically or spiritually.

What I said to the ladies who came out to this breakfast was geared toward those who live in the kinds of neighborhoods they live in. I understand something of that since I’ve lived in neighborhoods similar to theirs in SE Bakersfield for much of my adult life. That has been my place of service, the people to whom God has sent me. They have “faces” and “names” to me, even though I don’t personally know these ladies, yet; they are not strangers, really. So I spoke to them as God laid the ideas and words on my heart.

But you know, the truth transcends all cultures and economic levels of society. What I said to those ladies applies to everyone. The truth for the ‘hood is the same as for the middle and Upper class enclaves in the “high dollar” zip codes of our country (a good West Virginia-ism there).

For anyone interested in reading what I spoke, I’ve included it here. If you prayed for me and the ladies of SE today, thank you. You are a part of whatever God is doing in SE Bakersfield!

The script is rather “staccato” looking simply because it had to be translated every few sentences. It follows:

Good morning! Buenos Dias!

Wasn’t that a nice breakfast?

Let’s thank the ladies who did all the work!

My name is Jacque Wallace and I moved here last October.  I like Bakersfield!

I was born and raised in Michigan, the Mitten State.

I’ve lived in Minnesota, Florida, Canada, California, Georgia, West Virginia and now I’m back in California again. I think this will be the last state I live in!

I count it an honor to be able to speak to you today. Thank you for this opportunity.

Today I want to talk to you about two girls. Then I want to tell you how you all are connected to them.

The first is a girl we read about in the Bible; from the book of Mark, chapter 5:

“…one of the synagogue rulers…came (and)....Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

So Jesus went with him….(then) some men came from the house of …the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead”, they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly.

Jesus went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.”

But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”

Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was 12 years old).”

I was about 12 years old when I read this story and somehow I felt a kinship with this girl. Even though she had lived 2 thousand years ago, she and I had something in common, we were young girls.

I had no idea at that time that in a few years I would have something else in common with that little girl: I too would be dying, and my parents would be crying out to God like her parents had.

So the second girl I want to tell you about is… me.

I was a happy, healthy child until about age 13 when I began to have weakness in my muscles.

I had a hard time talking, smiling, eating; my eyelids drooped, I had no energy, I couldn’t even raise my arms to comb my hair, and you know how important that is for a young lady!

For 2 years I kept getting weaker and weaker; we didn’t know what was wrong with me.

My parents finally found a doctor who diagnosed a disease with a very long name I won’t make Maria say! I’ll shorten it to “MG”. Much easier!

After I was diagnosed I got worse and worse so that finally I couldn’t go to school, couldn’t feed myself, couldn’t even raise my arms.

I ended up in the hospital at age 15 to have a surgery the doctors hoped would help me.

But they told my parents I might not live through the surgery, and if I did, the surgery might not even help me get stronger.

I cannot even imagine how my parents felt. I was dying before their eyes.

Crying out to God in prayer, my parents grasped at the small hope offered that the surgery would help me, that God would heal me, just like the synagogue ruler in the Bible grasped at the hope that Jesus would heal his daughter.

I lived through the surgery. 

When I woke up after surgery I couldn’t talk because I had a tube in my throat to help me breath, and tubes in my lungs. I had a big scar down my chest.

I remember being in and out of consciousness in the ICU. I found out a few years ago I had been in ICU for 6 weeks, hovering between life and death.

Instead of getting better after surgery, I was getting worse every day; I was still dying.

Finally, one night when the doctors didn’t think I would live until morning, my dad gave me up to God to let God have his way, even if it meant I would die. He let go of his little girl.

That night, I started to get better.

Jesus gave me life.

But is that the end of the story? Happy ever after just to be alive?

When God gives you life in exchange for death, there is a debt to be paid.

I think of it this way: When my dad let go of me to let God do whatever he chose to do, God said, OK. Now I will give her life.

You finally understand she belongs to me. I have a claim on her. I have put a call on her life to serve me and one day she will understand that too.

And one day God did call me, softly, lovingly he called in my heart, to make good on his claim.

At about age 20 I heard God in my heart calling me to him and I gave my life back to God; I dedicated my life to loving and serving God.

I had put my trust in Jesus Christ to save me from my sins when I was a child, but now God was taking me the next step in following Jesus: giving my life back to God.

I just wanted to serve him because I loved him!

That was the most joyous time of my life! Even though I had little physical strength, I wanted to serve God with all my strength, out of love for him.

And by God’s grace I have been doing that for the past 42 years. It has been the greatest adventure to live by faith and serve God!

Now, why did I tell you about the little girl in the Bible and about me?

I told you so you could see a picture of the mercy and grace of God…the mercy and grace he has shown to all of us in Jesus Christ.

All of us are made in the image of God and he loves every one of us.

But the Bible also says we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. We all are dead in sin, dead to God.

Just as that little girl was dead in her body, we are dead in sin, dead to God.

We all are in desperate need of the Savior to give us life and forgive our sins. We can’t save ourselves. 

Jesus Christ is the one and only savior who can give us life in exchange for death.

By his sinless life, by his death, taking our sins on him on the cross; by his triumphant rising from the dead; Jesus has become Lord and Savior for all, for anyone who calls on his Name for salvation, for forgiveness of their sins.

And he gives us his own eternal life; he makes us alive to God!

Now, today, is the day of salvation! God calls to us in the Now. Choose now to trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of all your sins and to gain eternal life.

And if you have done that, if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

now is the day to give back to God what you owe him for that great salvation: your life.

And that is the point of me telling you about my life: God gave me life; I owe him my life in return.

I’m not talking so much about when I was sick and dying and he gave me life;

I’m talking about the life he gave me when by faith I placed my trust in Jesus Christ to save me from all my sins.

God the Father sent his son Jesus, who took my sins on him and died in my place. That is why I owe him my life.

And that is why you owe him your life. Jesus gave his life for you.

God now says to you,You understand, don’t you, that you belong to me. I gave my life for you. I have a claim on your life.

And I have put a call on your life to love and serve me with all your heart and now I am calling you to step up and do just that.

You must ask yourself, How can I hold back my life from such a merciful and loving God as this who gave his life for me?

How can I turn away from the greatest joy of my life?

How can I miss out on the greatest adventure in life, living for God my King and Savior?

So, OK, you may ask, how do we give our lives back to God to love and serve him?

Giving our lives back to God means we Love and Serve him with all our heart. And we prove our love for God by loving and serving other people.

So first we must confess we have not loved God wholeheartedly, and repent of going our own way.

Then, we must begin to live our lives according to God’s ways, as he shows us in the Bible, no longer living in our old ways.

Serving God has nothing to do with big, flashy, noisy things.

Serving God is done in quiet, everyday deeds.

Loving and serving God doesn’t take a lot of money or education; you don’t need those things to be kind to others and choose to do the good and right things. Right?

Loving and serving God doesn’t take a lot of ability. Anyone can serve God.

Someone said, the greatest Ability is Availability. In other words, Just showing up!

So what does it look like to give God your whole life to love and serve him here in SE Bakersfield?

Let me share some ways I can think of (and I only talked with God about this, no one else!).

First and foremost you love and serve God by faithfully going to church every Sunday, with your children or grandchildren, and your husband.

Why? To be with other believers who love God and who will encourage you, and you encourage them; and to learn from the Bible about God and how God wants us to live. That is why we go to church.

You love and serve God by teaching your children each day about the Lord and living out what the Bible teaches in front of them, doing the right things, day after day in your home.

These two things are the basics, the ‘kindergarten’ of living for the Lord. Everyone who says they are a follower of Jesus can and should be doing these things.

But there are other ways to serve God close to home:

Being a good neighbor. Do you like to have good neighbors?

Be a good neighbor! You are the face and hands of Jesus to your neighbors.

You could show your love for God and serve him by volunteering to work with the children during church some Sundays, or volunteering at church to help in other ways. Could you use some help at church, Maria, Cesar?

Whatever church you attend, you can serve God by being a faithful worker there.

You could serve God by volunteering with Maria and Cesar as they reach out into your neighborhood.

God has sent them here to your community to join with you to tell your neighbors and family about Christ.

Maria and Cesar need your help in the after-school and summer programs serving your children.

You need to invite your friends to go with you to Bible study, perhaps joining Maria’s Bible study on Thursdays, to learn more about God and how to live in the world.

You can help with putting on this wonderful monthly breakfast to show your love for the ladies sitting in this room with you. Is this something you can do? Sure it is!

What are other ways you can serve the Lord right here where you live?! You can come up with a lot more ideas than I can!

Let’s hear some of your ideas.

You may not do all these things but certainly you can do something.

This is how you give your life back to God and serve him with all your heart --by serving others.

We are only limited in showing love and kindness to others by our will to do it.

If you say you are a Christian but haven’t been loving and serving Christ with all your heart, come confess that to God and start serving him now! God will forgive and help you.

But don’t come forward unless you mean it! God takes you at word!

If you haven’t put your trust in Jesus to forgive all your sins yet, do that now and then start doing what is right, living out your love for God by loving others. Start in the ‘kindergarten’ of loving and serving God and move outward to your community.

Again, don’t come forward unless you mean it! God takes you at your word!

We cannot Earn our salvation, but we must make every Effort to follow Christ in obedience, fulfilling Jesus’ great commandment to “love one another.”

And remember, in everything you do, do it as though you did it to the Lord…for you are.