It is easy during this time of year to get lost in the habits of the season. As much as we might love the decorations, the songs, and the services, they can become rote. And when a practice becomes rote it begins to lose its meaning.
Church Life
What do you need to know for your “drive” today that you don’t know? You know our Caller has mapped out integrity and faithfulness and diligence. You know He directs us to clean hands and a pure heart and a tongue that utters no slander. You know He expects kindness, tender-heartedness and a forgiving attitude, …
May you attach your sense of self, your meaning and purpose, your moral compass, and your hopes and dreams to the message delivered in that upper room and to the actual moment of sacrifice on that hill outside the city.
So this season, how about scanning your heart and life? How about looking for those places where you still need to die to self? How about crying out for the willingness to take up your cross and follow Jesus in his death?
Let go of things you tend to prize. Let this season of sacrifice loosen your hands and free your heart. Let go of some of your comforts, things that have perhaps comforted you too much, so that your heart is free to seek a better Comforter.
Joyless people are miserable people. They haven’t tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They haven’t yet learned that it’s through our times of suffering that the Lord often does his best work. I have been in a joyless place, and chances are you have, too.
Weddings honor marriage. The visual of a man separating from his parents and uniting with his wife esteem marriage as highly valuable.
Pastors and church leaders are given the difficult task of counseling members through the hard times of life. How can a leader not try and fix each and every problem presented to them by members?