Tonight’s Blog for April 6, 2013

Tonight I am remembering my friend from South Dakota. He is a quiet man who wanted to join our church. So, we

helped him by starting our “101” classes. They are perfectly suited to answer questions, but I underestimated him. He attended the class for a couple of weeks but wasn’t getting his question answered. So, my friend came prepared one night and asked a question that he worded something like this, “Can you tell me, what benefit will I receive from this church when I join?” What a great question. It made me think about some of the answers in the past, about building use, about friendship, about a safe and good place for children to grow. I wish I had a better answer, but I didn’t.  I wish I had talked to him about freedom, and lightness of spirit, and eternal life, but I didn’t, at least, not then. Those came later.

Tonight I am praying about the freedom that is promised to those of us who have chosen to love our LORD and walk with Him. I didn’t tell my friend about this at that time! Never forget how much it cost Christ for us to walk in the light and to walk with lightness in our steps. Or have we forgotten? Perhaps our prayer should be for HIS light to shine in our faces and on our paths again.

Tonight I am thinking about the times folks have come to a cross road in their spiritual walk. We all start this road the same. We have a clean slate at birth. We make choices that weigh us down. That is what I would have liked to have said.  It never was about what we receive as a benefit from joining a church. The benefit is eternal freedom, eternal lightness, and eternal joy.

Tonight I am realizing that these choices are on the side of sin or of freedom from sin. Have you realized that sin, apart from separating us from each other and from Christ, sin also becomes a burden that takes our future happiness away by the sheer weight of our choices. If we tell a lie, the future will hold us down and slap us as we seek ways to prove we didn’t lie. As for sexual sin, or even the thought of our sins, we again meet in the future our formidable opponent who wants to steal our happiness. Most of us realize that sin hurts all parties involved, even breaking our Fellowship bonds, after we accept JESUS as our LORD.  And here is one final observation about this “weighty” problem. When you don’t sin in these areas, if there is no lie to cover up or sexual sin to deal with, there is still the weight of our expectations or of the expectations of others. Sometimes this personal pride can swallow our victory and turn us into prideful rebels.

Tonight I am so glad that my friend rode his Harley to my office in South Dakota. On that day, during his lunch hour we met for a baptism. This really was his first step to freedom and light. My friend found HIM, and lives for HIM. GOD Bless your saints. Big marv