Good Morning All!!
Amos 5:24; “But let justice roll down like waters, and
righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
There is an ad on
television that speaks of someone giving “2%”.
It talks of a store that takes 2% off the price and calls it a
sale. The gist of the ad is you have to
commit much more in order to make it matter.
Sometimes we do that as well. We
only contribute a little to the cause.
We see it in our jobs. We all know the guy who seems to do just
enough to get by. He seems to have a
knack for working when the boss watches or when evaluations are done but the
rest of the time he is either “out” or doing something mindless. We deal with people like that all the time;
slackers who don’t put in the effort.
The only thing worse is when we are the slacker.
The really sad thing is that a lot of
Christians seem to think they only need one type of relationship, the one that
God has with them. I hear many people
who talk of “me and God” as all they worry about and all they need. They think that they are a singular entity
existing all alone.
Being
a Christian is about fellowship, about being a brother or sister to your
neighbor. When we think we can live a
sterile, selfish life we soon find we are wrong. True Christianity is a very messy
business. It requires you to get
involved in the lives of people around us.
That can be easy when we are all the same but it can be tough when some
of us are different.
Some of us may not have the wealth that
others have. Some of us may not be as
smart, or good looking. Perhaps, because
of age or other health reasons we don’t walk as well or talk as well. Maybe, because of poor choices we made
earlier in life, we are left broken and damaged. Sometimes, these are the people we tend to
avoid. We want to invite people to join
our church but they have to be the right people. We marginalize and reduce rather than build
and edify.
Yet God tells us that when we only go part
way with our faith; that when we think we can turn our witness for Christ on
and off; we are really missing the point of God’s grace. God frees us from the bondage of sin and the
slavery to the law to be social creatures who care for each other. It is sin that causes us to see differences
when there aren’t any. It is sin that
causes us to look only to our own needs, to our own relationship with God. God calls us to live together, sharing the
highs and the lows. He calls us to see
that the fellowship of all believers, indeed all people, is treated with the
love and respect that God created us with.
This is why he calls us to see that justice occurs. It is by our actions that our faith is best
seen. It is as a wise man once said,”
preach the gospel every day, use words if you have to.”
Dear Father, we often fail in our
relationships with our brothers and sisters and we focus only on our own needs.
Forgive us when we look past those in need. Lead us to see that the greatest
value is in serving our brother and living in righteousness before you. In
Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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