Why Do You Do What You Do?

You are familiar with the story of the three Hebrew boys (from Daniel 3) who were thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image.  Among the many lessons that emerge from that story of courage is a powerful, three-word sermon that addresses one of the great errors of the church today:  “But if not.” 

 

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were hauled before Nebuchadnezzar to answer for their refusal to bow down to his image, this was the answer they gave:  “Our God, Whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

 

But if not. 

 

Would you still pray, even if God said no to your request?  Would you still go to church, and give God a tithe (ten percent) of your income, even if God did not increase your profits this year? 

 

Would you still obey God in your personal life, even if God allowed you to remain in the shadows?  Would you still choose to live a pure life, even if God never sent you a marriage partner? 

 

Why do you do what you do?

I fear that the church has fallen prey to a subtle idol—one that would demand righteous activities, but with a very false motivation.  Comfortable in our prosperity, I’m afraid we have forgotten that the highest purpose of doing right is not so that I can obtain more earthly comfort and earthly praise for myself.  In fact, this short life is not about me at all.   It’s about Jesus. 

 

When I was in college, there was a girl on my hall who was having a crush on my brother’s roommate.  Since we all hung around together, I suppose she thought I had “connections” and could encourage a relationship.  She suddenly wanted to be “close friends” with me, offering to drive me off campus, buying me donuts while I was at work, and even throwing a surprise birthday party for me. 

 

Sadly for her, I had no connections.  My brother’s roommate was free to choose whomever he wanted to date, without my input or persuasion.  He chose someone else.  The parties and the donuts disappeared. 

 

Kind deeds, fueled by false motives, aren’t kind. 

 

Going to church, reading the Bible, giving generously to the Lord’s work, avoiding substances that harm the body, and a hundred other noble works, done so that God might notice and throw out His benefits on us, are no more loving to our Savior than throwing a birthday party for someone in hopes that it will earn you a boyfriend.  That’s not love; it’s manipulation. 

How often this poor philosophy has been peddled to unsuspecting customers! Teenagers are told to avoid fornication so they don’t get pregnant or contract disease.  Wives are told to submit to their husbands’ leadership so that he will be kinder to them and appreciate them more.   Church members are told to tithe and avoid working overtime on Sunday because God will bless them with riches.    

 

The three Hebrews, standing before King Nebuchadnezzar, were prepared to do right and burn anyway.  “But if not . . . we will not serve thy gods.” 

 

Would you tithe even if your finances did indeed indicate a decrease of ten percent at the end of the year?  Would you decline an overtime opportunity that would remove you from church, even if God simply met your needs this year and did not choose to increase your riches? 

 

Would you avoid fornication and live a pure life, just because God said to (II Timothy 2:22), not because there was any measurable immediate benefit?  Would you submit to your husband’s leadership, just because God commanded it (Ephesians 5:22), even if your husband still chose to use his free will to be unjust and unkind? 

 

God promises to honor those who honor Him, but we don’t get to dictate the terms of God’s honor.  It is short-sighted and earthly-minded to tell God how He must bless us if we obey, and that the blessing must all happen right now, here on earth.  Much of the honor God promises is not going to happen until heaven. 

 

While we are so busy claiming honor and comfort down here, we have forgotten how live with the Bema seat in mind.  When I stand before that judgment seat of Christ, and He sets fire to all my works, only those things done for Christ and through His power will remain.  For all of eternity, I will present Christ with those remains, casting the rewards at His feet over and over again.  

 

And at that moment, I will be consumed with only one thought:   Was I motivated by love for Christ, or was I motivated by earthly gain?  The rewards will tell the whole story.   

 

 

 

 

The Danger of Expecting To Be Understood

I remember a conversation I had, many years ago, with a friend who was experiencing a deep trial.  It seemed that at every turn, someone was accidentally saying or doing something that opened new wounds for them.  In frustration, they said to me, “People don’t understand!”   And I couldn’t argue.  Their unique trial was something I barely understood myself.  Yet those words have haunted me for well over a dozen years:  “People don’t understand!” 

 Sometimes we don’t understand because we are thoughtless.  Pride is clumsy and unwieldy in the presence of injury, like a freshman medical student doing brain surgery.  Certainly we have all been bruised by the careless advice of friends who assumed they understood our hurt, who thought they were experts at our trial just because of their keen observation skills.   We timidly unveiled our hurts or fears, and they swooped in like barking sea gulls at a picnic, offering to sell us a health product, or sharing some inspirational tidbit they read on Facebook.  Like the Lawn Chair Drone that surprisingly penetrated White House security fencing, the most inept among us somehow manage to stumble wildly into the enclosed places of our hearts that wise friends gently leave alone.   Sometimes, thoughtlessness really is a punishable crime. 

 But there are times in life when even good people just can’t understand.  They have never been “us.”  We try to explain.  We feed them lots of articles and “raise awareness.”  We educate everyone around us on our needs, and we judiciously seek to protect ourselves from misunderstanding.  But try as they might, a hundred articles and a hundred conversations later, even the best among us still don’t get it. 

 If we are not careful, Danger slithers into a comfortable resting spot and lurks silently, buried underneath our search for understanding.  Ever watchful, he waits patiently for his opportunity to strike.   A wrong word, a misplaced question, or a missed phone call on a tough day, and he will uncoil and punish with venom that will take everyone by surprise.  Suddenly, they will learn what pain is all about!  Now we can all be miserable together. 

Bitterness.  The word itself rattles and hisses. 

The cool shade of loneliness in suffering that was meant to be a sanctuary where no one could find us but Jesus has now become the swampy headquarters of an enemy who wants us dead.  A soft bed of rotting leaves and humus should have made a couch, hidden behind the brush and weeds, concealing us from the curious and the careless.  In the murky shade where no one could see, we would meet the One whose nail prints are still a mystery to us.  And there in our dark place, the One Who has never been understood would understand. 

But instead, we often give our shady spot away to the serpent.  Sitting on the prickly briars of unmet expectations, we trade healing for accusations.  In the words of a man well-acquainted with bitterness, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”  From his make-shift seminary next to a withered gourd,  Jonah admonishes us four thousand years later:  Bitterness may seem to be your right, but that’s poison you’re drinking.

We all live with the fact that others truly don’t always understand.  Awkward questions; the noisy silence of a mind racing for answers in a funeral home; clichés that crash across our pain; an empty mailbox that reminds us that other lives have moved on:  Those are the mossy branches and the grape vines that overarch your precious shady spot. 

Don’t let the serpent steal your spot.  You have a Friend waiting there, underneath the quiet umbrella of loneliness and misunderstanding. 

 

 

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A Graduation Message to Our Twins

Dear Jessica and Jonathan,

 

Nineteen years ago, Dad got up on a Sunday morning and announced to the church that we had a “visitor” who was coming to stay with us for eighteen years, due to arrive that fall.  We later learned that our “visitor” was bringing a friend to join us for that eighteen year sojourn.  And now your rooms are overflowing  with suitcases, mountains of clothes, electronics,  and last-minute projects.  Amazingly, much faster than any of us anticipated, your odyssey here is closing as you embark on a new adventure. 

 

My mind races back to those early days of homeschool.  Printed alphabet letters on the wall, fat crayons, and numbers charts marked the beginning of that long era.  And every day, we started out with a Bible verse.  Do you remember it?  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, DO IT with thy might!”  You would pound your little fists on the table for emphasis, as though noise could factor in and increase your determination to master cursive writing and those infamous flash cards that almost brought all three of us to tears. 

 

And that is the sermon I hand back to you, and entire education later:  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do DO IT with thy might!”

 

You already know that this world is teeming with smart, athletic, beautiful, and charismatic people.  They finish seasons with trophies, and they garner publicity and praise just for being attractive or funny.  But you may be surprised to learn that the future does not automatically grant its custody to the gifted.  The future belongs to the determined, to those willing to invest resourcefully with whatever small gift they brought into this world, and to keep going.  And going.  And going.  The future belongs to the ones willing to get back up on Monday morning. 

 

If I could give you one tool that would embolden you to stand back up when the world wants to flatten you; to talk yourself into finishing when the entire universe tells you to quit; to defy the circumstantial evidence that would invite you to despair, and to rise again into victory, it would be this:  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. 

 

Do you hear the little fists pounding the table?  With all thine heart.  With all thy might.  Of all the missions you will face in this next adventure, the most important is this one thing:  Trust in the Lord.  If you pour your zeal, and every last ounce of determination into trusting the Lord, you will find the strength in Him to run your race “with all thy might.”  It starts with trusting the Lord.

 

Trust Him when you are on top of your game, when you have the world by the tail.  Some of life’s most unexpected turns lurk in those sunny days when we think nothing could touch us.  “Lean not on thine own understanding.”

 

Trust Him when things go wrong.  Trust Him when all your plans seem to dissolve, and when you don’t know what to do next. 

 

Trust Him when you feel the security and ease of having plenty.  Trust God enough to give back to Him rather than hoarding the resources He has blessed you with. 

 

Trust Him when money is scarce, when you don’t know how you will pay bills.  God “pleadeth the cause of the poor.”  You can trust Him to supply your needs.  Your greatest victories  in life will often start with a story of “need.” 

Trust Him when you are injured.  Trust Him to give you charity for those who hurt you—by their words, by their silence, by their actions.  Trust Him to teach you how to love your enemies, how to pray for your abusers.  Remember what they said about Jesus when He hung on the cross?  “He trusted God.”  Let your enemies suspect the same of you. 

 

Trust Him when you need wisdom.  Jesus is not just a supporting actor in your play.  He wrote the play.  Follow His script.  Let Him tell you what to do next.  

 

Trust Him to enable you to do right.  Every failure of character we experience is the result of self-dependence.  Faith is your shield. 

 

Wherever God’s will takes you in this next great adventure of life, trust Him with all your heart, with all your might. 

 

“He it is that doth go with thee.  He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” 

 

We love you and count it an honor to be your parents! 

What Christmas Teaches Us about Easter

This holy week, when all the world stops to reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of our Savior—when even secular atheists cannot muster the strength to forget what this season means to the rest of us—I am reminded that the central meaning of Christ’s resurrection is actually defined through the Christmas we celebrated just a few short months ago. 

 

The Christmas holiday season, for all of its excess and materialism, still teaches us what it means to be good givers.  If it’s truly the “hap-happiest time of the year,” it’s only because, for once, we spend an entire month scheming how to show love to others.  We set aside money that should have paid for necessities, and somehow we squeeze pennies out of worn out dollar bills, just to share with those we love. 

 

To give well is to risk well.  We hope our earnest effort will not find itself left untouched at the end of the day, tags intact while other favorite gifts steal the show.  Children shop carefully and linger long at the Dollar Tree, squeezing their hard-earned quarters and shyly wondering whether Mom will like their choice of nail polish, or if Dad will try out his new hanky on Christmas Day.   

 

Sometimes we get nervous when it’s time to present the gifts we’ve worked so hard to prepare.  Something inside of us can’t bear the disappointment of seeing our labor of love get set aside carelessly, as the recipient gladly moves on to something more interesting.  We just want our gift to be accepted—not purchased from us, not discarded, not ignored.  Just received gladly. 

 

And that’s how Christmas teaches us the story of the resurrection.

There was a Giver Who loved the world.  He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

 

That Son “came unto His own, and His own received Him not.”  They hunted Him down in a garden one late night, where he prayed in agony.  They dragged Him into a mock court, where liars were coerced to witness against Him.  He was blindfolded while Roman soldiers slapped him and challenged Him to identify them.   And then he was scourged—beaten with whips that tore His body with hidden pieces of glass, leaving His “visage so marred, more than any man.”   The next morning, they crucified Him. 

 

“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities,” Isaiah reminds us.  “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed.”    

 

The tomb was guarded in a round-the-clock vigil by Roman soldiers, thanks to the urging of the priests:  “Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away.”  Pilate’s orders were clear:  Seal and guard the tomb “as sure as ye can.”  Despite every measure taken by a competent military that had managed to achieve world conquest by 27 B.C., they failed miserably on that third day. The death-machine of the Roman army could not sustain its power in the presence of the One with nail prints.  For Christians around the world—in free lands as well as in persecuted countries—that resurrection is celebrated every single Sunday of the year, not just at Easter.  Forgiven sinners simply cannot stop celebrating their liberation from sin and guilt. It is the singlular reason we have hope.  Paul said that without that resurrection, we are “of all men most miserable.” 

 

And our salvation through that Resurrected One is a gift. 

 

The price of this gift of salvation is beyond our imagination.  For all of his eloquence, penning over half of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul simple calls it God’s “unspeakable gift.”  There are no words. 

Paul later reminds us that this gift of salvation cannot be enhanced with human effort.  “It is the gift of God.  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”    A gift that has been paid for by the recipient is no longer a gift.  At best, it is a Dutch treat.  At worst, it is an insult.  Salvation can be obtained only as a gift.  There are no other options. 

 

Salvation is a gift not to be tweaked, not to be bought with the dull pennies and  dimes of our pitiful human effort.  Those who would add to the finished work of Christ, “being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”  

 

Only God is qualified to pay for our salvation.  We undermine and destroy this gift when we offer to pay for it with the pocket-change and pebbles of our “good works.”  Jesus said, “There is none good, but One.  That is God.”  If being a church member, or getting baptized, or donating my worldly goods could wash my sins away, salvation would no longer be a gift obtained only through the work of Christ on the cross.  Pennies and dimes.  Pebbles and pocket change. 

 

Salvation is a gift not to be ignored as we greedily hunger for the temporal and ignore the spiritual.  “For today is the day of salvation,” warns  Paul.  We don’t have a guarantee of tomorrow.  The author of Hebrews notes, “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this, the judgment.”    

 

The Christmas season may have taught us what it means to be a good giver, but Easter is the story of being a good receiver.   “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”  (John 1:12).

 

Have you received God’s “unspeakable gift”?  Have you received forgiveness from the perfect Lamb of God, “Which taketh away the sin of the world?”  Have you set aside your own righteousness and asked Jesus to wash you and hide you in His righteousness instead?    

 

“But whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  (Romans 10:13). 

 

Because salvation is not for givers.  It is only for receivers. 

 

 

The Test

I remember some mischief a friend and I got into during a Sunday morning service when I was about thirteen years old.  We were just old enough to sit in church in a row toward the front, where our parents could spy on us to make sure we were listening to the sermon.  Unfortunately for our parents, we were sitting just enough out of reach to be corrected.  And here is where our story begins . . .

 

Toward the beginning of the sermon, one of the girls in our row leaned over and handed an “Intelligence Quiz” to another friend on the other side of me.  The quiz listed several easy instructions, and the lucky test-taker who could complete the entire list without fail would prove to be “intelligent.” 

 

Here is the list: 

 1.  Using a pencil, draw a circle around a quarter 10 times.

2.  Pick up the quarter.

3.  Roll the quarter from your chin to your forehead, without dropping it.

4.  Roll the quarter back down, without dropping it. 

5.  Roll the quarter from one ear to the other and back again, without dropping it. 

 

Handily, we happened to have a quarter (probably someone’s offering) and a pencil.  How lucky for us!  My friend took the test with all due diligence.  And it was there in the fifth row of church, on a Sunday morning, that I realized what the point of the test really was.  (I would encourage you to take the test if you have any questions.)  I’m sure the pastor was a little startled to look down from his pulpit and spy a young teenage girl with a penciled “cross” drawn across her face.  He shared good company with some startled parents as well. 

 

Not all tests reveal only what is listed on the paper.  Jesus gives a test like that in Matthew 5:44.  “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”  Do you see the test?  It’s not a test of performance.  It’s a test and a cure for bitterness, all wrapped up in one.

 

We all have enemies, and we all struggle at times with bitterness.  I have--more than I want to admit.  Sometimes enemies hide their hatred for us behind “lying lips,” as Proverbs speaks.  And we hide our hatred back.  Nodding politely, even offering assistance at times—but hiding that secret hatred beneath the surface, despising any good report of our enemy, watching from a distance to make sure they fail.  Bitterness is ugly business because it sprays more graffiti on the vandal than the object. 

 

The commands of Christ always have a probing effect on us, exposing our hearts while we scurry around trying to fulfill an easy list of surface commands.  Tracing quarters, but missing the real “test behind the test.”  

 

Love your enemies.  There is hardly an end to the ways that people find to make themselves our “enemies.”   We are tempted to watch for opportunities to hurt back--maybe with just enough information passed along at the right time to damage a reputation, sometimes even recruiting allies to support our hatefulness. 

 

My tendency to be selfish is revealed when I compare my actions toward my enemies with the way I would purposefully treat someone I know I love.  Love is hard to hide—and so is the lack of love.  If I find that I just cannot love back—bitterness lurks.  Where the Holy Spirit wants to empower me to love, I am quenching Him.  Roots of bitterness are tangling up my heart, suffocating the work of Jesus.  There’s the test. 

 

Bless them that curse you.  To “bless” means to speak well of, to speak good things for the other person.  Proverbs 24:17 warns us that if we gloat when our enemies stumble, God will refrain from dispensing just punishment because of our hateful attitude.  God will not be made into my personal “hit-man.”  Vengeance truly is His. 

 

I have not been cursed (that I know of . . .).  But all of us have, at some point, been unfairly accused and gossiped about.  When we receive the startling news that someone has been hosting a “whisper campaign,” what is our response?

 

The words come too quickly, and we want to expose our enemy to the world. Many times the first place where bitterness surfaces is in the titles we give our enemies.  Teenagers with bitterness reduce their parents and teachers with titles like “old man” or just a last name.  Bitterness despises respectful titles. 

 

If everyone around me knows who my enemy is because of how I have spoken about him, I am bitter.  If I would be chagrined to hear a good report of my enemy, or if I work hard to straighten out the story to make him look bad, I am bitter. If I find satisfaction when bad things happen to my enemy, I am bitter.  If I question or dismiss any good thing my enemy does, because his awfulness is necessary to justify my hatred, then I am bitter.  No blessing to be found.  There’s the test. 

 

Do good to them that hate you.  There will always be haters.  If the world could hate Jesus, of course they will hate us!  They hate us for having an accent, or for having more money or better cars than they do.  They hate us for being from a certain city, for not knowing as much as they do, or for winning their prize in the contest.  To acknowledge that I have an enemy is to acknowledge that I have an assignment.  What good have I done for my enemy?  My selfish heart wants to settle for the easy way out: The silent treatment would be so painless.  On paper, we have done nothing wrong, but we have still neglected the central command:   Do something good.  If I were taken to court for loving my enemy, would there be enough evidence to convict me?  There’s the test. 

 

Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.  Jesus was slapped and beaten.  He knows the pain of intentional direct hurt.  He doesn’t ask us to explain away other people’s evil motives and actions.  We aren’t asked to lie or creatively assign moral motives to malicious behavior.  We are commanded to pray for them.  And lest we give in to the temptation to pray only imprecatory prayers (“Let his children be fatherless!”), we are reminded still to “bless” even in our prayers.  God loves my enemies, even when I don’t.  God has a much bigger, better plan for my enemy than the life he is living right now—using and persecuting me.  I need to pray for God’s good plan to unfold in the life of my enemy.  I need to pray for his salvation and for him to find victory over the sin that is tripping him up right now.  I need to pray for mercy, as I hope that others pray for me when I fail so often.  “But it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed,” Jeremiah lamented.  All of us. 

 

Bitterness is the ultimate form of judging.  It is impossible for me to be bitter at someone if I acknowledge that I am capable of his sin.  My self-righteous heart wants to resist:  “But I would never do or say that!”  Or maybe I would.  It is only my imagination that allows me to live in a world where I am better than my enemy.  Only the Lord’s mercies have prevented me from being consumed by His judgment. 

 

“He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;

and what doth the Lord require of thee,

but to do justly, and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God?” 

Micah 6:8.

Stand up anyway

After our class on Wednesday evenings, the kids in our church love to play Dodgeball for the final 5 – 8 minutes of class.  No other game compares to dodgeball.  I have tried many other games, but the request for Dodgeball always comes back—and that is how Dodgeball became a permanent institution at Believers Baptist Church.   Last week, Josh managed to achieve his first victory in Dodgeball: He actually hit a girl with a ball.  She and I were both equally surprised that his lightly-lofted ball hit her, but she had been caught off guard while aiming at her own target.  For the rest of the evening, Josh just smiled to himself from the back row of boys, basking in the satisfaction of his first successful hit. 

 

One of the real lessons in Dodgeball, though, is how to take a hit, and sometimes that’s much harder than taking correct aim.   Foam sponge balls don’t generally cause injury (provided they are directed below the neck and not reaching velocities that compete with the speed of sound—Junior high boys, please take note).  But even without pain, it’s offensive to be targeted and then hit.  Venturing away from the safety of a remote corner can be risky.  The truth is, Dodgeball is much more than just a fun game.  It has a way of teaching us to face both deliberate opposition as well as friendly fire with some fortitude.  The fellowship hall may be filled with an army of sweaty kids aiming foam balls at you:  Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear cripples.  Almost undetectable at first, it drapes invisible cords around us and then pulls them tighter when we’re not looking, pulling them like reins and steering us away from discomfort, ridicule, and loss.   But those cords themselves bring loss —often more costly than whatever pain we were avoiding.  When the slothful servant was asked why he did not invest his single talent, he responded, “I was afraid.”  (Matt. 25:25).  Fear of rejection and punishment distracts us from the mission God has sent us to do. 

 

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear deceives.  Quiet and sneering, he rarely makes a sound.  Unlike other vices, whose presence is well-advertised and distained (anger, substance abuse, gossip, hatred, laziness), fear lurks beneath the surface like mold, anonymously wreaking damage before anyone can even identify the mysterious threat.  Fear hides underneath a lie, disguised as “personality”, or “carefulness,” when in fact it is turning our eyes away from the One Who has our lives under His control.  “Fear thou not,” said God, “for I am with thee.”  (Isaiah 41:10).  “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  (John 8:32).   

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear trains our affections toward selfishness.  It is impossible to “look on the things of others” (Philippians 2) when our scope is filled only with self-preservation.   Fear creates a sense of “victimhood,” leading us to believe that we are being threatened more than other people around us are threatened.  Fear vigorously instructs us not to try anything risky, not to give more than we can afford to give comfortably, not to befriend someone who might reject us.   “But perfect love casteth out fear . . .”   (I John 4:8). “But God commendeth (showed) His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8).   

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

 

Fear makes liars of us.  Fear tells us what to say, until we forget who we really are and what we really believe.  “The fear of man bringeth a snare.”  (Prov. 29:25).  Fear tells us to adjust our core beliefs to match the approval of those around us.  “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”  (Gal. 1:10). 

Stand up anyway.  Don’t flinch.

                     

 

 

“What time I am afraid,

I will trust in Thee.” 

Psalm 56:3

Church Is Spelled "Service"

It’s a phone call we get at least once a month.  “Does your church help with electric bills?”  ( . . . or water, or groceries, or gas)  The answer is “yes,” and we are thankful when we are able to help.  Last month, my husband and our deacon were glad to share the gospel with a lady as they helped pay her water bill.  Giving is what churches do best, since we serve the greatest Giver of all. 

 

But there is a little secret many people don’t realize about churches and their ministries:  They are funded and supported by people just like you.  Not rich people, who don’t notice the twenty dollar bills float out of their wallets.  Our benevolent fund—like almost all churches—is funded by ordinary people who feel the sacrifice and give anyway:  people on Social Security; people whose kids easily qualify for “free and reduced lunches” at school; people whose Christmas may have looked a little slim last year compared to many around us.  But they drop money into the “Others’ Fund” each month because they choose to honor the Lord that way. 

 

Without any science to back up my hunch, I suspect that many people are operating from a flawed understanding of what church is really all about—and much of that understanding has come because of the media.  Thanks to religious programming, there are some unrealistic expectations that have hurt biblical churches in recent years.  Ordinary pastors find themselves compared to painted and polished celebrity preachers; their sermons compared to slick, feel-good presentations; and their facilities compared to campuses, where the money flows freely in TV-land.  It’s easy to see why a false expectation of local churches has cropped up.       

 

There are godly television pastors, and they fill an important role for those who are infirmed.  But for those who are not infirmed—who still have the ability to serve the Lord here on earth—television has offered a sanctuary from service.  Other than a plea for finances at the end of the sermon, these ministries do not offer a way to give to the Lord.  No TV preacher will ask you to come on a weeknight to pray for the missionaries, to come for nursing home visitation, or to bring ham sandwiches to a funeral, and nobody in that televised church service will be a stronger Christian because you tuned in today.  Church is spelled “service.”  Every Christian ought to find a local church to join and serve. 

 

 We all have expectations of what a church ought to be doing to serve us—to help pay an expense during a job layoff; to include our family member on a prayer list for that upcoming surgery; or just to encourage us when we are facing difficult circumstances. 

 

But we do well to ask ourselves:  Am I serving, or just expecting to be served? 

 

Am I a member of a local church?

Do I tithe to my local church?

Do I support the missionaries of my church through giving and prayer?

Do I encourage and pray for others who are missing from services?

Do I keep a copy of my church’s prayer list and pray for the needs on it? 

Do I support the ministry and outreach opportunities of my church?

Do I support the services of my church by attending faithfully?

 

What if everyone at my church participated at the level I do?  Would there still be a church?

 

“For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”   Mark 10:45

 

Christ is our example.  We were saved to serve.