Only Easter?

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” ­– Luke 9:23–24

Faithful church-goers often get frustrated with Christians who only attend services a couple of times a year, usually Christmas and Easter. I get it. When someone claims to love Jesus but neglects the very thing He died for, the church, you wonder what kind of game he or she is playing. You want to look at them sideways, you want to complain about them, you want to shake some sense into them — don’t, at least, not at first. Instead, take a long, hard look at yourself. Examine your life through the lens of the gospel of Christ and ask yourself how serious you are about living out His mission.

Of course it is not ok to only act like the church twice a year, but it’s also not ok to only act like the church once a week. Jesus was clear, painfully clear, when He said living for Him is a daily act. Being a faithful Christian means waking up every day with one question on your mind, “How do I best honor and enjoy Christ today?”

It is ok to be frustrated with Christmas and Easter only Christians, but turn that frustration first upon yourself and ask how your life points them to the glory of God. Are you strengthening your relationships with those people? Are you finding ways to pour the truth of Christ into them during the week? Are you encouraging them with Scripture and prayer? Are you modeling a life of joy that treats your church involvement as a privilege rather than an obligation? If not, let me encourage you to rethink your idea of being a faithful church-goer. Church growth has always been a grass-roots endeavor. It is driven by you, the individual Christian. If you will focus less on obligation and more on your joy in Christ and His church, people around you will see what they are missing, and maybe, just maybe they will see church attendance as something that fuels their life rather than something that drains it.

Pastor Josh        

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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