Activities and information that promote our growth as Christians and our relationship with Christ within the corporate body of the Church.
People hurt people. Yes, we live in a society of rampant physical domestic abuse, but I am referring to emotional hurt. Family relationships are strained, people who once were so called “friends” now live in bitterness, even slanderous, with one another. And the last place such pain should occur is among Christians, but it happens. Too much.
Well, it has come. Christmas weekend. The next few days will be full. Family gatherings reach their zenith. Church services for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be attended. Perhaps last minute shopping will occur. Whatever unfolds in our lives, this whole thing started long before this weekend. The world, the Christ-less world, started cranking up the “holiday season machine” in November, if not late October. And the world pulls out all the stops when it comes to this time of year. Lights and decorations turn houses and yards into brilliant displays.
A regular reading intake of the Gospels is vital for Christian growth. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John allow us to “walk with Jesus” as He walked upon the earth. We observe His compassion in healing the sick. We listen to His profound preaching in The Sermon on the Mount. We stand awe-struck over His calming of the seas with just three words of command, “Peace, be still.”
Quick. No time to think. Just talk. Give me at least three reasons why we pray. Some of us might answer; “I pray because God commands me”, “I pray because I need God’s help”, and “I pray because I want God to act in a situation or a person’s life.” Those are good, Biblical reasons for us to pray, but I think there is something far more nobler and a higher reason to pray. It is the reason we see modeled in the Greatest Person who ever prayed; the Lord Jesus.
Lord willing, a week from today, we will elect our next president. As obvious to all, this has been a volatile, painful, and certainly demoralizing campaign leaving Christians perplexed, disheartened, even disgusted. In the midst of what we have and are observing, it is important we remember our Lord reigns; that God is sovereign and controls the affairs of all nations to include the rise and fall of leaders. However, such comforting truth does not leave us passive, disengaged, and fatalistic as His people.
The Apostle Paul described God’s call on his life with these words, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7-8). It was a call to preach the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” And, we, as recipients of God’s grace, have been granted access by faith to these “unsearchable riches of Christ.”
