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We should always live our life with integrity and honesty before both God
and man because as disciples of Christ, we are a reflection of the Lord who
is all truth and all love with no other motives in mind. We must also keep
in mind that as believers in Jesus Christ, we have been given the privilege
to be His hands and feet on the Earth proclaiming His love and goodness
towards all who are hurting and in need. Be encouraged to live your life
with purity and honesty in mind and heart and stand in who God has created
you to be. (Luke 6:35-36) (Psalm 37:16-18) (John 6:32-40) (1 John 4:7-13)
I hope this message encourages your heart to live honestly and with a pure
heart representing the Love of God that is within you.
HARVEST MOON
He was a farmer, a factory laborer, and a country pastor. He worked hard
and lived simply and loved his family. He could be a good neighbor, too.
He farmed a small hill-farm and raised beef and some grain for feed. In
the summer his grandchildren would come and they would bail hay, fish the
pond and eat sweet corn and garden-ripe tomatoes.
When harvest-time came he would piece together his old one-row corn picker
and oil it up for the season. It had seen many seasons. He pulled it behind
a little Ford 9-N and hooked a wagon on the back. It was a noisy
contraption unlike these huge modern green monsters you see shaving the
grain off wide, flat fields in wide gulps these days.
His whole operation was like that. Basic. His life was like that, too. He
worked hard, helped others and you could count on him to keep his promises.
That's what made it so hard one autumn when time and responsibilities and
difficult circumstances closed in on him. He needed to harvest a few acres
of his own corn. He also promised to harvest a few ribbons of corn that
wound around the hills on a friend's farm, too.
Problems came. First equipment trouble. Usually he was able to fabricate
something or rig the equipment so the job could be done but after he had
harvested his own corn, his little corn picker coughed, sputtered and quit.
It was out of use until a special part came from distant lands and that
would be too late to help this year. The equipment problem was followed by
a time problem. The factory had orders to fill and began to require
overtime. He was leaving the farm before light and arriving home after dark.
He sat at the kitchen table and nursed a cup of awful coffee while he
wondered aloud what to do. His wife said that there was simply nothing he
could do. He would have to tell his friend that he couldn't help with his
corn. He thought long and the idea didn't set well with him. His friend
was depending on him. “If you don't have the equipment, you just can't do
it,” his wife said. “Well, I could do it the way we used to do it. I could
harvest it by hand.” “You don't have time to do that with the overtime,
besides it would be dark.”
He consulted the Farmer's Almanac. Late in October there would be another
full moon. It is called the harvest moon because it gives farmers more
light and increases their harvest time. If the Lord gives us clear weather,
I think I can do it.
And he did. The weather was cold and clear and the moon was brilliant.
After work he made his way to the field and his wife met him in the truck
with dinner and a thermos of more of the awful, strong, black coffee. Then
he worked through the night to keep his word.
Late one autumn in 1958 he had a grandson. He and his wife got in their car
and drove across the state to see him. They would share the same name.
Kenneth Pierpont.
I know this story well, because the farmer was my grandfather. I'm proud to
have the same name as he did. I've spent hours on the fender of the tractor
with my grandpa. I've even suffered through some of that same awful coffee.
But I had never heard about this incident until I was having a talk with my
grandmother one day about values she and grandpa believed very deeply in.
Hard work, and keeping your promises.
My grandpa did work hard and keep his promises. He also loved his family.
I am proud to have his name. Sometimes, when I am tempted to cut corners
or defer responsibilities, I think of my grandfather out under the harvest
moon bending low and swinging his sharp corn-knife in a wide arch. I can
hear the thump of ears of corn hitting the floor of the wagon and the
music of geese honking their way across the cold October sky against the
brilliance of the harvest moon.
In the dark early hours of the morning, when his work was done, he crawled
his tired body up in to the seat of the old tractor and made his way home.
Behind him in the pale moonlight, I can see row after row of corn shocks
standing at attention in respect for a man who keeps his word.
By Kenneth L. Pierpont
Read and meditate on these scriptures:
James 1:22-25 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is
like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth
himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man
shall be blessed in his deed.”
Psalm 118:8-9 “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in
man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.”
James 1:5-8 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth
to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But
let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man
think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is
unstable in all his ways.”
Luke 6:35-36 Jesus declares “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and
lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye
shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful
and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
All of these scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.
Today’s Selected Poem: IT'S IN THE VALLEYS I GROW
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/enpoem142.htm
Today’s Selected Testimony: TESTIMONY OF GOD'S LOVE
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/testimony150.htm
In Christ’s Service,
Dwayne Savaya
Gods Work Ministry |
