end a beautiful day. SU and I had an early evening dinner with a couple to discuss a trip to Hawaii next year and had a great time. They are fun, easy going and are able to let the joy of Christ shine in their lives. Neat to be around people like that.
Worked on my lesson plan for tomorrow for a little while when I got home. The next six weeks we’ll be using Beth Moore material and looking at how believers fall from God and how to restore them. I’ve never used her material, it’s always been focused upon women. The daily readings this week were okay, but not great. However, when I sat down tonight to review them as a whole, they started to make sense.
One of the readings I’ll use tomorrow is Galatians 6:1-10, which talks about falling and restoration. I think I need to read this passage daily until it get into my thick skull. I especially like the way The Message reads for verses 4-5:
4–5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
Don’t be impressed with yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. That would solve about 99.9% of the backstabbing that goes on in today’s world. I also really, really liked this little piece of Jon Courson’s commentary on the passage:
Finally, the church of Jesus Christ is a hospital—which is why I believe it is wrong for people to say, “I can’t believe I saw him, or her, or them at church on Sunday. They’re really sick.” If someone’s sick—a hospital is exactly where he should be!
Imagine a hospital administrator saying, “Check out our hospital. There are no bad odors in our halls, no stains on our linen, not a bedpan on the premises.”
“Wow! This place is immaculate,” you’d say. “How do you keep it this way?”
“It’s simple,” the administrator would answer. “We don’t admit anyone who’s sick. We want only a sterile environment.”
That is a ridiculous scenario, yet exactly the way some would like to see the church. However, if we are to be what the Lord wants us to be, we should rejoice when He sends sick people in our direction.
Imagine, on the other hand, a hospital wherein bedpans are overflowing, dirty needles are stacked up, and all of the bandages and blankets are drenched in blood. “What’s going on?” you would say.
If the administrator said, “We’re not into cleanliness. We’re just into helping people,” you would most likely say,
“If you allow dirty needles to be used, and bedpans to overflow; if you never mop the floor or wash the linens, you will actually be doing more harm than good because infection will spread and problems will compound.”
So, too, on one hand we need to be cognizant of our calling to welcome all into our midst. On the other hand, we are to make sure we are not being infected by allowing disease to spread throughout our congregation.
So I hope tomorrow’s discussion will be fruitful.
Back to why this was an incredible way to end the day. I found a clip on Youtube of Tony Melendez singing and playing for Pope John Paul II. Wow. Tears of joy and awe are just streaming.
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