Thinking This Week

DRIFTING? DISTRACTED?

How is your walk with Jesus going? Are you as close to him as you were a year ago? Or are you drifting? Are you distracted?

Time and time again the Old Testament people drifted. What was supposed to be a close and personal relationship with a living and loving God became less and less important. They drifted.

Time and time again the Old Testament people were distracted. They gave too much attention to their immediate comfort and became too interested in what the neighbors had.

Their drifting and distraction led to disaster… God allowed the hated Babylonians to come in and destroy their temple and take them into captivity. 

Scripture cautions us about the very real possibility of falling away from God and the disastrous consequences.

As we approach Holy Week let’s hear God’s call to remain faithful. 

• Let’s worship God mind-fully. The Christian faith is not mere cultural tradition. It is a real relationship with a real God. When we worship, let’s be fully there.
• Let’s live life kind-fully. One of the great accents of walking with God is to love the others that he has created.  As Christians we are to go beyond the pagan quid pro quo kind of love (love those who love you); we are to love and be kind even to our enemies.
• Let’s flee paganism strength-fully. The Old Testament believers got into their greatest trouble when they made un-holy alliances with the pagan world around them. Let’s be on guard as we live life in but not of the world. Where do you see a pagan, un-godly spirit around you? What are you doing to remain separate from it?

GOD CRUSHES HIS ENEMIES

One of the downsides of people reading through the Bible is… people reading through their Bible! Aggressive Bible reading leads to lots of questions.

Since we have made this an annual emphasis in our congregation, one of the most common issues that people raise is the brutal elimination of so many enemy armies in the Old Testament. It seems incongruent that a God of love could have sanctioned the killing of so many. What are we to make of that?

A case in point is the destruction of Jericho at the end of Israel’s exodus. Joshua 6 details how the people of Israel were to kill all living things: men and women, young and old, sheep, cattle and donkeys. What are we to make of such things? Instead of explaining it way or ignoring it, let’s see what we can learn.

• God does crush his enemies. There is no way to sugar coat this. “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
• Good to be friends. If God crushes his enemies, how terrific it is that we have become his friends through faith in Jesus. There is nothing more valuable and important in our lives than that we are friends of God by his grace and mercy.
• Avoid alliances with the world. As the friends of God, we have to be careful that we do not give ourselves over to the ways of his enemies.  We are to be in the world but not of the world.  What are you doing in your daily life to make sure that you are not making unholy alliances with God’s enemies?
• Seek defectors. Jesus is the only path to friendship with God. But that path is open to all. Let’s see how God can use us to extend his friendship with those who are now hostile to him.

WHAT IS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP?

This week our congregation will welcome a number of new people into membership. Can you think back to when you joined your congregation?

What do you think of when you think of being a member of a local congregation? How do you define membership? What does it mean that being a member is more like being a part of a body than an adherent to a club? (See I Corinthians 12 for a discussion of church “membership.”)

If your life was the rule for all members, how healthy would the body be? Do you know of members who need to be strengthened? Do you know of members who have cut themselves off?

One of the significant issues for the Church today is for her members to understand more clearly the implications of membership in her local congregations.

Make you think? I hope so.