Today has been amazing. Eddie and I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m. and we were a little warm so I looked to see what temperature I had set and he suggested I open the window. I said we are on the 2nd floor they won't have a window that can be opened. Wrong!, I slid it open easy as you please and no window screen. A sick feeling came in my stomach and I really felt ill. I have eaten breakfast each morning and this older man has brought in his little 4 or 5 year old grandson with him each morning. He crossed my mind and just as quickly the scene on 911 when I watched in horror as the person jumped out the window to avoid death by fire or worse. There was a broken lock on the window. This morning I did report that and encouraged to please consider a small child how fast they are and curious and what a danger it could be even if it never actually happened, What if it did? A simple thing like fix the lock and was assured they would. I hate complaining about anything but that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach lasted about 45 minutes till we finally hushed and went back to sleep much cooler with the ac on.
This morning I woke up with the light in my face as every morning for the past 7 days and got up and locked the door after him after the morning safety speech, which I was ignoring and he kept saying, "Mee Maw, are you listening to me?" Then he proceeded to pull off my covers and I giggled and said, "yes I hear you," just so he would go on. I mean I get the same speech everytime he leaves as if I have not got enough sense to pay attention to my surroundings and lock the car door when I get in and look to see who is around when I get out. Blah, blah, blah. ("_") Oh well, he loves me.
I got a bath, got ready and my hair looked half way decent and I thought, here it looks pretty good and not a soul but me will ever know. So being vain, I took a picture of myself in the mirror and put it on FB. Heaven knows if ever I have a photo made of me around the house it will be at my very worst. Now I know it is vain but at least try and look at me and take a picture when I am at least somewhat straightened up. I know time is getting short and wrinkles are getting longer and hair thinner and back more bent as was the forefinger holding the camera so boldly showed, so I thought why not? I need to show at one time I looked like this.
I went to breakfast came back and tried to find a sermon online and the computer wouldn't cooperate so I turned on the TV to get the end of a sermon by Dr. David Jeremiah, guess I should give him his correct title and not just his name. He had a really good sermon (or at least the end of it was) on how we possess, but God owns. He gave the scripture Deuteronomy 8:18 for those that think they pulled themselves up by their own boot straps. He said man gets what he has from God. God owns it all but allows us to manage a portion that he gives us. In 1 Corinthians 4:2 Paul boils it down in one statement. "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."
He went on to say stewardship is the act of organizing your life so that God can spend you. He quoted another man Lynn? that had said it. Souls of men and women and the Word of God are the only things that are eternal, so whatever we give to these two are eternal and will get the stamp of approval and added to our account.
"You can only keep what you have given to God" I thought these were pretty profound thoughts and I began to think what do I do and give for God that will be eternal? Pretty sobering thought.
I didn't reflect too long, but went to share it with my friends on Face Book as I always seem to do. And I had mentioned I would go to church if I had some shoes other than my tennis shoes even if I had to go in jeans. Our pastor's wife said go anyway. I thought about it. I don't go to church to dress but I do dress to go to church. I feel like I am not giving my best to God in jeans and tennis shoes. I always try to wear a dress for that reason. I want my best for God and he has given me dresses and dress shoes, and if not then I would wear the best of whatever I had to wear and have no qualms about it. At any rate, I jumped into the only pair of decent dress slacks I brought to wear home (I had no intention of being anywhere but stuck in a hotel, little did I know for the first time I would have the luxury of having the car left for me while Eddie rode with another worker).
I went to the front desk and asked the girl about the local churches and one I might slip in and not be noticed and be able to worship. She had visited some and was looking for a home church and told me that she thought this particular one named Tabernacle Baptist Church might be the one. So I jumped in the car and took off because it was already after 10:30. I got there and where in the world to park. There were cars everywhere. Both parking lots that I readily saw and all along the street was full. Praise the Lord people here are going to worship. I got in this parking lot and some were parked along the side and I slipped in behind the last available and made for the door.
There was a man waiting to leave but nobody going in. My heart hammered like the motor on a car that was about to throw a rod. I walked into the entrance area and a man passing out bulletins opened the door into the fully seated sanctuary. I know my eyes were big as saucers and were darting around like a bird avoiding a cat in charge and I saw an opening beyond two people sitting on the end of the seat. I asked if I could sit on their bench and rather than make me crawl over them, they scooted down and let me sit beside them. As I sat down it was like someone had put a girdle around my chest and my back had pain grip and squeeze in unison. I actually gulped for air. The thought crossed my mind, Lord don't let me have a heart attack and die here. Eddie will never find me and when he does he will kill me for not taking my cell phone or leaving him a message where I would be.
There were singers singing a familiar song and the congregation joined in on the chorus and I sang as we stood up. I don't know what that song was. I was scared to death. I don't know why I sang, the words just shot out of my mouth. And finally we sat down and the preacher came up and began speaking about, "Predictions." He walked back and forth across the front and talked about lots of thing being predicted this time of year and went on to say this was the last Sunday on a series about the topic, "How God Builds a Great Church- The Church's Future Revelation 2:1-7.
"In revelation 2:1-7, Jesus chastises the church at Ephesus because they failed to properly order their love. We can secure a great future for the church when we make sure our love is ordered in the right way. So how shoud we order our love? this passage highlights four loves of the church, with the last one being the most critical.
"Do I love Jesus or not?" Now he has my attention totally and the emotions have subsided and I am suddenly at ease. At the end of the day the answer to this question is going to be all that matters, he said.
A love for Ministry
A love for holiness
A love for truth
A love for Christ
How do we get on the right path? Note three commands Jesus gave this church.
1. remember
2. repent
3. repeat
And from these he preached one of the best sermons ever. "Ephesus, you walked out on me." he made the statement that history shows by the 3rd century Ephesus was dead. No more. Eddie is here so this will be continued after lunch. LOL
Well, we shared a salad and left over pizza and while he took a nap I went to do a little walking and shopping, which normally I would not do on a Sunday, however, they won't return the blue laws if I remain at home today so I went. I wonder if that is why the blue law no longer exists? I will justify my actions because it is so hot and all I brought was winter clothes. Again isn't that what we do? Justify our own sins. I hope because we are not under the law and I would not offend anyone by going that it really was ok for me to go, however, I still won't do it as a regular thing because in my heart I don't want to. Just like it isn't a sin for others to wear pants and tennis shoes to church but I choose not to do it because for me it is uncomfortable because I want to be special for the Lord's house when I go and it is my way of doing so. Which brings me back to the sermon. His comment we all have an opinion but that does not mean that opinion is truth no matter how sincere we are. Truth is not an opinion, truth is what God deems it to be. That is my thought not in his sermon.
He equated the church at Ephesus like a marriage when things begin to make little cracks, finances, children, other things that just seem to slowly wedge between the couple. The church let in false doctrine because they didn't measure what the leaders taught by the truth of God's word, which at this time was not easily obtained other than by the Apostles that taught the Word that had seen and heard the truth. As he said they couldn't google it and say, "oh this is not the way it is."
Had I not taken notes, I would not be able to go back and share the points he made. As a church we can sustain vibrancy and effectiveness. A love for ministry. We can love theology, bible study and love to read the word and still not truly love Jesus. Now I have to chew on that just a second and swirl it around in my mouth to taste it. Do I love Jesus? Do I love other people? Do I treat them like I want to be treated? Do I serve Jesus all the time or just when I want to? Is it duty or love? Do I really love Jesus. As he said you can't love Jesus and not love people. It isn't an either or proposition.
A love for holiness will not bear with those that are evil. We will not love immorality and things that do not please the Lord if we truly love holiness.
How do we get on the right path? Note three commandments Jesus gives this church.
Remember when I loved Jesus more than I do now? Now that was a thought. Maybe it is a measure of where we are with the Lord and how we are living out this action of loving Jesus.
Repent, well we all know what that means don't we? I had just gone through the example he gave of getting lost. And as he taught about repentence is turning away from the way we are going and sometimes we have to go back and look at where we have been in order to see this. So repeat. He had gone to preach at a little church in the middle of nowhere and there were several roads to get to nowhere. He went and taught and left to go home and found himself completely lost. He had told himself, "oh! yes I remember that being here" and just kept going. After a time he ended up on I 95 and had no idea where he was so he decided to go South and surely that would get him back to the place he needed to be. After sometime he decided, I must go back to where I started in order to find my way home. And that was what he did. A fifteen minute commute had turned into a forty five minute night mare. I so could relate. My salvation was I was lost in the day light. In the dark I would never have found my way back to New Bern and would likely have called Eddie to find me somewhere near Raleigh. So sometimes we must repeat.
I fear that is what the real danger of our church today. To allow the small cracks to take the rains of sin and slowly enlarge them and before we know it, God will come take our candle stick away.
I am glad I have an audience of one here, but when we let our guard down and we come into our church in immodest apparel is there a small crack beginning? When we go from formal to casual for our leaders is there, (not that it is wrong), but a certain air of respect and authority seem to lose their effect, is a small crack beginning? When we let teachers teach our young with no accountablilty or training, maybe a crack began. Changing translations like underwear maybe another crack came in. How far do we stray from the rule before the sight of the truth of the rule is no longer visible. Canyons are formed from small rivers that grow when large rains come. When we do not guard our speech and our manners, show concern for one another, show care for feelings of others and just do what feels good to us or seems right to us are we causing a crack to eventually make a canyon?
The sermon of a man I do not even know his name, was preached this morning because he was where God wanted him to be and the tool he used to reach one soul and that was me. As he made comment God will find the church to spread His gospel, it will continue to reach the lost, but will our church be the one that He uses to do His will. Will He come quickly and remove our candlestick or will He have mercy and grace for us to stop REMEMBER, REPENT, and REPEAT?
It is truly something I want to think about in my life. Do I really love Jesus? And as I type it the refrain rings in my ears, If ye love me keep my commandments."
I do want to add to this in closing. Somewhere in time we have lost the fine line between legalism and liberty. We are so prone to not offend by legalism that we swing too far with liberty. Liberty stops where it differs with the commandments of God. Just as our freedom ends when we encroach on the freedom of another.
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