FAITH AND FAITHFULNESS

     A casual reading of the Scriptures can give us the impression that a life of faith is a continuing, exciting adventure. When we read the great stories of the outstanding Bible characters, like Abraham, David, Daniel, Paul, Peter, and so on, we think that everyday they had an epic encounter with God. Nothing could be further from the truth.

     Study carefully the Scriptures and you will learn that often there is a span of many years from one verse, or chapter, to the next. There are long seasons of quiet, unremarkable living from day to day. One such example is from Daniel 4 to the next chapter, 5. In between chapter 4 and 5 there are 23 uneventful years that pass by before he steps back onto the national stage.

What we need to learn from this is that walking in faith is mostly about daily faithfulness, the ongoing development of Christlike character, ongoing prayer and reading of the Word, and hearing God speak at times.

     This is something we must understand, if we're going to understand what it means to follow Jesus. The Christian walk requires that we just keep plugging along. So stay the course!

Pastor Ron

Let's Truly Care

In my devotional this morning I read a story about two Christian young men who decided to visit a Church in their community. The preacher preached about hell that Sunday morning. The two visiting young men described the preacher as seeming to be a little too pleased about the judgment to come upon sinners.

At the end of the service as people started leaving, the two young men decided to stay in their pew to see if anyone would come over and greet the two strangers that wandered into their Church. They wanted to see how much the preacher and the congregation really care about them. They sat there for a long time, and then left quietly. Their impression was that this was a Church that gleefully delivered bad news.

  

The lesson I drew from this sad story was that we should not rebuke people if we find ourselves enjoying it. If we're going to talk about hell and judgment, let us do so with tears in our eyes and caring in our hearts. Oh! By the way, let's be sure to greet strangers at Church.