Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”
Our Bible verse for today: “So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today – to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul – then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.” Deuteronomy 11:13-15 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “God never overlooks faithfulness”
This morning I was thinking about the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Leviticus is twenty-seven long tedious chapters of detailed rules and regulations that the Old Testaments Jews were required to follow. Those rules and regulations governed all aspects of worship, and stewardship, and daily life in general.
I found myself thanking God that Jesus did away with all of that and therefore I don’t have to live under the burden of that law. But I also found myself thinking about why it was that God required such things of them. There are many answers to that question but one of them is that God is pleased by and honors faithfulness. That’s the point Moses was making in Deuteronomy 11:13-15.
When the Old Testament Jews faithfully applied themselves to obeying all that God had commanded and required of them, it was a measure of how serious they were about honoring and pleasing Him. It was a matter of faithfulness.
As I noted, the commands of Leviticus don’t apply to us in the New Testament age. But there are other commands of God that do apply and like those in Leviticus, they too can be a measure of our faithfulness. One of those commands is found in Hebrews 10:25, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.”
Meeting together, regularly and consistently, is a vital part of the practice of the Christian faith. God expects it of us, and in fact, He requires it. And yes, it is a measure of our faithfulness.
I remember a man by the name of Bob who was a member of the first church I was the Pastor of. Bob was in the advanced stages of emphysema and was close to dying. He was on oxygen 24/7, needed help to get out of bed, and had to be transported everywhere in a wheelchair. But he was in church every Sunday until just a couple of weeks before he died. In my view (and I believe in God’s view too), Bob’s great faithfulness made him a great man of God.
I think of Mary Rose Kemmer –a dear saint and a wonderful woman of God. Her entire adult life she was an active and faithful member of our church. If the doors of the church were open you could count on Mary Rose being there. Even in her old age, when she was weak and sick, when it required a major effort on her part to go anywhere or to do anything, if she could get someone to come for her and help her, then she would be in church on Sunday. You couldn’t keep her away. Her faithfulness was a sign of her greatness.
Mary E. Henry was another example of faithfulness that was greatness. I could name others but you get the point.
What about you? Will you be gathering with your church family this Sunday? If not, why not? This is an issue some of us need to be thinking and praying about. Faithfulness is a direct measure of where we’re at in our relationship with God. I encourage you to think about it, pray about it, and then make it a point to gather with your church family this Sunday.
God never overlooks faithfulness. Nor is He blind to the lack of it.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 