An Investment in Eternity

With Mother’s Day just around the corner and with Father’s Day coming up in June, relationships within families call for our attention again. In every relationship that God designed and placed us in, His purpose was for each member to strengthen and build up the other. Paul describes those nurturing roles in the fifth and sixth chapters of Ephesians. He talks about husband / wife relationships, about parent / child relationships and about master / slave relationships (the principles apply well to employer / employee relationships). Husbands, give of yourself to your wife as Christ did to the Church helping her to become the most godly woman possible. Wives, come alongside your husband hold him up and encourage him in his God given role in the family. Parents, invest worth into the lives of the children given to you and teach them to know the Lord. Children, give honor and respect to the parents that God has given you. When we fill our role that God has given us in relationships, the dividends that come back are extremely rewarding.

It is nothing new to you that the family is under attack in the world today. Marriage has lost its sacredness. The thought of a lifetime covenant between a man and a woman is rare. A child showing respect and honor toward their parents is outdated. Parents who will personally invest in the mental and spiritual growth of their children are hard to find. Respect in the work place has been hi-jacked by the philosophy that “I deserve better than this”.

Ephesians uses phrases like, “Put off falsehood and speak truthfully. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Be imitators of God, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

We are living at a time when we are faced with a serious economic crisis. Given enough time the crisis will probably pass. Even if it does not pass it will not make a difference in eternity. There is a much greater crisis! It is a crisis of relationships that do have eternal implications. It is a sobering thought that the way we invest in others can make a difference in where they spend eternity. The relationships with families are especially in need of attention. Go back and spend some time reading Ephesians 4:17-6:18. What changes will you open yourself to that might have a life-changing impact on those around you? Christ will be honored and your life will be filled with a greater joy!

Keep on keeping on,
Pastor Phil

TURN ON THE LIGHT

“In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it.
Yet to all who received him,
to those who believed in his name,
he gave the right to become children of God.”
John 1:4-5, 12
The Ten Boom family, living in Holland, was arrested and led away to prison, then to a concentration camp for providing aid and housing to Jews during the time that Germany occupied Holland. Shortly after going to prison, Corrie ten Boom was led from her prison cell to be interrogated by a Nazi officer. As she shared with the officer the ministry that she was involved in back in her hometown, the lieutenant exploded, “What a waste of time and energy! If you want converts, surely one normal person is worth all the half-wits in the world!” Swallowing hard Corrie responded, “The truth, Sir, is that God’s viewpoint is sometimes different from ours—so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things. In the Bible I learn that God values us not for our strength or our brains but simply because He has made us.”

In subsequent meetings the lieutenant asked what else was in that Book. “It says that a Light has come into this world, so that we no longer walk in the dark.” Corrie asked, “Is there darkness in your life, Lieutenant?” “There is great darkness,” he said.
Some of the last words the lieutenant spoke to Corrie before their hearings ended were, “I wear a uniform, I have a certain authority over those under me. But I am in prison, dear lady from Haarlem, a prison stronger than this one.”

Luke tells us that as Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.” They too lived in darkness and in a prison they found hard to break free from. However, such spiritual conditions did not lessen the compassion that Jesus had for those He came to die for.

In the book, “The Hiding Place”, Corrie reveals her struggle to love those who acted unjustly toward those around her in the prison and the concentration camp she spent time at. It was her sister Betsie, possessing an unconditional love mirroring the love of Christ, who challenged her to love more.

We are called upon in God’s word to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”. To be effective salt and light in the world, it is important to possess a compassion for the world around us that mirrors the compassion that Christ has. It is the kind of compassion that sees the darkness, the emptiness and the lost state of the most hardened and belligerent of the world and desires something better for them. While Corrie wished a better life for fellow prisoners, Betsie wished a better life for the guards and officers who were so hard and brutal.

Christ like compassion coupled with prayer and a willingness to reach into the lives of those around us with the message of the cross is our calling. The message of the cross includes the wonderful news that Christ can fill them with light, forgiveness, hope, purpose, peace and joy.

As we continue to pray and to fast for the lost during this season of Lent, get up and purposely connect with an unsaved person to show them Christ and the light He wants to pour into their lives. God wants to use each of us to bring the lost to Him. Turn on the light switch so others can see.

Keep on keeping on,
Pastor Phil