| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “Be smart, be strategic” Our Bible verse for today: “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.” Matthew 5:13;14 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Yes, the Church is the answer” In yesterday’s devotional I quoted all of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13-16 regarding His intention that His followers be like salt, which acts as a preservative and helps to prevent the spread of decay and corruption; and like light, shining the truth of the Gospel into the spiritually dark places of the world. The Church is the answer to evil in the world. But then I posed the question that if the Church is the answer, what’s the problem? Since there are hundreds of thousands of churches in communities all across this land, filled with tens of millions of professing Christians, why is evil still so pervasive in our communities? Could it be that we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, aren’t doing our jobs as intended by our Lord? Has the Church in our nation become ineffective? Evil is present in our society. It is pervasive, and it’s becoming more so. The more our society drifts from the Judeo-Christian Ethic upon which our nation was founded, and from the Biblical principles which undergird that ethic, the worse the situation will continue to get. The question is whether or not the Church can help to prevent the spread of evil, or even slow it down. And the answer is, “it depends”. The potential is certainly there. Individually and collectively we as the followers of Christ have the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us. So, yes, we can effectively stand against the evil. And yes, we can slow it down. In some cases, we can even prevent it altogether. The question isn’t if we can, the question is if we will. The problem is that the Church in America today has become lethargic and weak, apathetic and ineffective. It’s as if we’re sleepwalking through this mess which is our society, numbed and overwhelmed to the point of indifference (or, maybe, to the point of despair). Attendance is way down in the majority of churches; ministry activities in and out of our churches have been pared back; Biblical principles have been compromised for the sake of getting along with the culture; and so much more. Often, I hear Christians loudly condemning what they consider to be heavy-handed government intervention in our private lives as elected officials desperately search for answers to events like the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. And I agree. I don’t want government intervention either. But the fact is, the worse the situation gets in our society, the heavier the hand of government will have to be in an effort to contain and control it. If we, the Church, want less government intervention, then there will have to be more spiritual intervention. And that’s on us. That will have to come from us. We’re the ones who have been commanded by Jesus to be the salt and light that is so badly needed in our world. More about this tomorrow. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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