The Lord blessed us with a full and
celebratory weekend. On Saturday we had a service of death and resurrection for
a man who was 88 years at his death. He was man of great dedication and
devotion. He was a loving husband, great father and a wonderful grandfather. He
left behind a great legacy of love. Yesterday
we had a baptism service during morning worship. It was another event for
celebration and joy.
One of the readings for yesterday
was taken from Mathews 4:12 ff. Here our Lord Jesus was walking along the lake
shore of the Sea of Galilee. Fishermen were busy in their daily tasks,
when Jesus interrupted their lives. He said, "follow me". Immediately they
left everything and followed Him. Their lives were changed forever. For too
long we have said to people, "Invite Jesus into your life." Jesus doesn't want
to merely be in our lives because our lives are wrecks. He wants to call us
out of our lives into His life. He wants to take us boldly where we've never
gone before, into the life of the kingdom of God. He wants to take us on a
great adventure. That is exactly what he means when he says, "Come and follow
me," Dietrich
Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and
die.”
In his book, Divine Appointments, Erwin McManus suggests that
many of us church folks unintentionally become sideliners. In fact anybody, not
just church folks, can become a sideliner to the great adventure of life.
McManus defines a sideliner as, "An observer rather than a liver of life,
somebody who is more a spectator than a player." These are people who live more
vicariously than valiantly. They find their romance in "Twilight" or "Fifty Shades of
Grey" but never do something really passionate and wild to demonstrate
their own love for somebody else. They fight their battles through fantasy
proxies like James Bond or Katniss Everdeen. Sideliners admire and applaud the
great servants, courageous heroes, and spiritual superstars, but they do not get
up out of their chairs. They do not rise to their feet and shout. They do not
leave the room in which they are sitting. They don't get up and actually go
with God to those places. They think to themselves, "When I grow up I might go
there." They still have not realized that it is only by going with God to those
blank spaces on the map they've never been to before that they will actually
grow up.
Let us consider putting at the top
of our resolution list this commitment: "I will take some deliberate
steps—meaning motion—to go on the great adventure with Christ this year. I will
get out of my chair, I will get off of the sidelines, and I will go with Jesus
to some place out there on a map." Let us resolve that we are going to try and be genuine travelers with Christ and
not simply tourists.
In Christ ,
Brown
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