It’s 2:47 a.m. New Year’s Eve 2019 as I am trying to write this week’s Words from the Pastor. Crazy to be awake this early in the morning I know, but if you can’t sleep you might as well try to do something productive, I suppose. We had a wonderful and blessed New Year’s Community Service last Sunday and if you missed it you missed a blessing, I think. All four of the evangelical churches in the area came together under one roof and all praised God together. It was a beautiful thing and a great way to kick-start the new year. I believe God was glorified in it and the Holy Spirit was there big time. Thank you, Lord! We are ready to start this new year with a full head of steam and turn our community upside down for Jesus!
But what happens when we wake up January 1st and the same ole same ole happens? Or maybe we can hold on to the spark until the 1st of February but then we fall back into the same routine and the same kind of pressure and the same…you know the drill. What do you do then?
Now Naomi and I heat our home with a woodstove. And I am the “Keeper of the Flame” so’s to speak. It’s my job to cut the wood, load the wood in the pickup, bring the wood home, unload it from the truck and stack it, split the big logs so they will fit through the door of our woodstove, cut kindling, bring the wood in, lay up the fire and light it. Then, to ensure that the house is warm I get up early and stoke the fire and add more wood. That way when my queen wakes up and comes out of our bedroom, she can be warm. Happy wife happy life I always say! And it doesn’t end there. After the wood burns there are ashes to clean out of the stove and haul off and clean up. And I do all of this because we don’t want to pay a $300.00 electric bill by operating our heat-pump. And I enjoy it, actually.
That’s the same way we need to be in our relationship with the Lord isn’t it? We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, need to keep our spiritual fire burning. We need to be, “Doers of the Word and not hearers only (James 1:22).” It isn’t a once-a-week come to church because that’s what I am supposed to do thing, it is an everyday die to myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus thing (Luke 9:23)! It is becoming a new creation in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17), putting off that old self and putting on the new! And doing that day in and day out, keeping the fire of the Holy Spirit stoked in our hearts.
I have had people come to me and tell me they are going to leave the church because they don’t feel that they’re “Getting fed.” And when I ask them what that means, not getting fed, they usually spit and sputter and aren’t sure what to say. And then I get personal with them and ask them how much time are they are spending in the Bible during the week? and they will usually answer me, “Not too much preacher.” So, I ask them how they can expect to get fed at church when they aren’t even putting the effort into feeding themselves in the first place? If we have been a Christian for a while, then we should be feeding ourselves and helping feed others. If we are disciples of Christ, disciples meaning followers or apprentices of Christ, then we need to be doing what He told us to do, loving our neighbor and sharing His Gospel. Lord, help me be the Christian man that I need to be to glorify You.
Please let me know if you need anything. Naomi and I love you all. -Pastor Steve