This is a message that I preached in chapel to help our students prepare for the summer months. The principles in it would be good for all of us.

If you are a Christian worker of any kind, you have faced discouraging times. I remember when we were starting the Good News Baptist Church in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Several times when it was time for our evening service, I had the church cleaned, the chairs set up, hymnbooks laid out, music playing, my sermon tucked away neatly in my Bible, and threw open the door ready to quickly step out of the way lest I be trampled by the surging throngs of people hungry to hear God’s Word!

Summer is one of the best times for making memories and becoming more productive. The longer evening hours make for great family and ministry time, and the changes in our routines that happen around this time of year, are the perfect opportunity to take a fresh look at our goals and plan our priorities.

The men whom Jesus chose to be His apostles found that if they would follow the teaching of their Master, they must recognize that His central teaching had to do with Who He is.

June 2011 marks my thirtieth anniversary in full-time ministry. I was saved in an independent Baptist church. Over the last three decades, I have seen the spiritual wagons circling into many different camps. We have to ask the question, “Should I separate from fellow independent Baptists?”

Someone has said, “The unsoundness of a vessel is not seen when it is empty; but when it is filled with water.” This is when you will see if it will leak or not.

In whom do you trust? An unquestioning attitude of full reliance comes naturally at birth but is somehow lost along the winding pathway of life. Somewhere along the way, doubts and fears replace this innocent trust with hesitancy and self-reliance.

Jesus often ate with unsaved people. He ate with unsaved religious rulers, and He ate with tax collectors and sinners—the unsaved social outcasts. He related to people over breaking bread and displayed the trait later in the New Testament called “given to hospitality.”

God has a plan for each one of His children. If His only goal was to simply take us to Heaven, He would do so the moment we trust Christ. The Bible makes it clear that God has saved us to serve.

I am an independent Baptist not only by my heritage but also by personal conviction. I am thankful for the godly men who led a great surge of the independent movement in the 1940s and 50s.