Has school started back where you live? Yesterday was the first day of school for my children. It has been a tradition for the past thirteen years for me to bake chocolate chip cookies for the kids to enjoy after school. They like them hot out of the oven, so I usually make the cookie dough and put the pan in the oven when I hear them pull into the driveway.
I love to bake and whenever I take someone a meal or there is a special occasion at school, I usually bake something. When the family comes in and smells something baking they say “Who is this for?” They just assume whatever I’m baking is going to someone else, because I bake for others so often.
My question to you is if you bake something to give away, do you bake some to stay? Do you give priority to others ahead of your family? So many of us are willing to give our best to others and then our families have to take what is left over. Before you sign up to volunteer for every committee on the list, pause and remember the Lord’s command to us all. Acts 1:8 says “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus was telling us we would represent Him to the entire world, but first we were to start at home. Jerusalem is where the disciples were living at the time. It was home. It was where their families were and the first place Jesus told them to be witnesses. The same holds true for us.
I do not want to come to the end of my life and have the whole world talk about all I did for others and have my children say, “But she never did it for me.” My first mission field is under my own roof. Next, I am to reach out to those in my community, my church, and surrounding areas. Only after I have invested myself there should I branch out to my state, nation and eventually the world.
You’ve heard me say before, the word “or” isn’t found in Acts 1:8. We are to invest our time and talents locally and abroad, but we are to remember our starting point is home. How are you investing in your Jerusalem?