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From the Pastors Desk
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For the man who wants to save his own life willlose it, but the man who loses his life for my sake shall find it.”
Matthew 16:24-25
The one who obtains church membership at some price, either great or small, and then fails to assume the privileges and responsibilities of the community of God, except perhaps in times of great pain and crisis, is like the foolish man who saved for 36 months to buy a new car.
After the car was delivered and safely in his garage, he locked the door to the garage and rejoiced greatly at his new possession. Each week, he would go into the garage to start the car, run it a bit and polish it up nice ’n’ pretty!
He kept the car locked up in the garage, reassured that if he needs to hurry to the bedside of his ill mother, or load up his family hurriedly to escape tornadic winds, he can!
Truly, truly I say to you—this foolish man is poorer and less prepared than he thinks. For when his mother becomes seriously ill, or when tornadic winds darken the sky and he races to the garage to be saved by his car now several years old, he shall discover rust, corrosion and general mechanical deterioration have taken their toll! What was once an efficient, modern and dependable means of transportation is no longer safe for travel. For his failure to use, update and occasionally drive the car, has caused all he has to be swept away by the first real storm. He can’t even use his car to visit his mother!
This is the way it is going to be for the one who claims their membership in the community of faith but fails to give regular attention to its privileges and responsibilities. In his poem titled, “It’s Up to You” John Henry Newman says it this way:
God has created me to do Him some definite service! He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have a mission … I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught … I shall do good! I shall do His work, I shall be an angel of peace, if I do but keep His commandments! Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away! If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him! In perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him! He does nothing in vain, He knows what He is about!
Be a part of the community of faith this coming Sunday! Come to Sunday School and worship! Bring a friend, too! May the living Christ guide you as you live for Him!
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P.S. See you at the quarterly business meeting on Sunday, October 19th.!