1). If you are going to church expecting to GET something, you are going with the wrong attitude. You are supposed to be going to church to GIVE: Give worship, Give praise and Give service to the Lord.
2). Proverbs 27:7 says: The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. Are you hungering and thirsting after righteousness sake, because if you are even the hardest messages are going to be sweet to you.
I received an email yesterday that I thought put a very practical spin on this-
A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone to church for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all." This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor.
It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher.
It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher.
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals But I do know this... They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work, If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment,
I would be spiritually dead today!"
I would be spiritually dead today!"
I pray that we will all be spiritually nourished and that we will be thankful for what the Lord has blessed us with in our churches.
1 comment:
From the "other" side:
My parents, both of whom have to write a sermon and preach a sermon every week:
Scenario 1.
I don't get it...that was the best sermon I have delivered in weeks, maybe months, possibly years, no one seemed to be the least bit interested in what I had to say.
Scenario 2.
I am so not looking forward to giving this sermon today, I don't feel like it is very good. I don't feel like I am clearly making my point, or maybe I am not making it strongly enough, or I don't feel like it is relative to the scripture today, or ...
Without fail, on those days, everyone in church will be in tears, or will come to my parents and say "what a GREAT sermon, I really needed to hear that."
All of that to say, it doesn't matter that you didn't get what everyone else got. What matters is that sometimes in a community God has something to say that may or ma not apply to you. Your struggles are not exactly the same as everyone else's, neither are the triumphs. The scripture doesn't change, and if you need the message that was given today sometime in the future, the Lord will put those words back into your heart. If not, take it on faith that the Lord had something to say to someone else, the message wasn't yours, wait a week or two, your turn will come around. :)
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