Hold the applause...

Have you noticed how much - explicit and implicit - applause occurs in the church these days? Such as the current wave of using worldly methods to attract people to church - I've written about it* before and it's still really bugging me.

Decades ago I remember my pastor (Pastor T) saying,

"The church is becoming too worldly and the world is becoming churchy."

It's truly really sad what the world is becoming and even sadder what the church is becoming. Actually it's quite unbecoming which is why the question I keep asking myself and others about some of the things I see is: "With all this is God applauding us or is He appalled."

 

I can start off a list but I'm sure that you know some examples of situations that people applaud and God is saying "Hold the applause" since He's appalled with what we're doing or not doing.

In my opinion, the only thing worse than Salt (i.e. us) not coming out of the Salt-shaker** is Salt that is out if the Salt-shaker and its impact is not obvious…

 

Matthew 5:13 says “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” (MSG)

God's expectation is that we are integrated with not isolated from the world we live in so we can influence them positively. The question is what are our churches imparting to our members...it's only with what is within them/us that we can make impact wherever we are.

Bottom-line: 

"Hold the applause", pause, ponder then proceed in the direction that pleases God.

 

References:

* http://mrs-pastor-and-pastor-mrs.blogspot.com/2015/11/its-no-playing-matter.html

http://mrs-pastor-and-pastor-mrs.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-salty-is-your-church.html







 

It's not automatic

The Bible is truly the Basic Instruction Book for Living on Earth (two other spell-outs: "Basic Instructions Before Living Eternally" and Believer's Instruction Before Leaving Earth").

Assisting or...

...Resisting?

This question crossed my mind as the title of a post several months ago. I kept resisting until the Lord forcefully "assisted" me by reminding me of this Scripture and insisted I get on with it - no matter what people will think or say so here we go.

Oh I wish...

As I lay in bed thinking about this year's Mother's Day post, this verse came to mind:

Matthew 23:37 - “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets. You stone to death those that God has sent to you. Many, many times I wanted to help your people. I wanted to gather them together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you did not let me. (ERV, emphasis mine)

In His Presence there's joy

...what about in yours?

This topic came to my mind when I read this passage a few months ago.  As I started writing this, I remembered that I'd written on the topic before - but let's continue on this one. You can read the previous post* later.