A Message From Our Pastor
Is the Time Right?
May 1, 2009
Once there was a young couple who wanted to join the church. So, they went to their minister with the good news and as you might expect, he was very happy for them. “I’m so happy about your decision,” he said. “It will be a source of blessing all of your lives.”
Then he did something very pastoral. He went over the Baptismal Covenant with them and together they discussed the vows and their meaning for their lives. The pastor shared his own salvation experience and how happy he was the day he made his open commitment to Christ and His Church. They also discussed their responsibility as members. It was exciting to realize that their gifts and graces could be used in a redeeming way for others.
After their heart to heart talk and a simple prayer, the young couple was now ready, more than ever, to join the church. It seemed that God was giving them the opportunity to say, “We are Yours. Our life decisions are clearly for You, Lord.” It blessed them and met a deep spiritual need in their lives to know they were making a total commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church.
Maybe some of us were not as fortunate as this young couple when we joined the church. Perhaps we believed in Christ and said the vows, but we had very little understanding of their meaning and content. As the years have gone by though, this has changed, and now we have a much deeper understanding. If this is you, it may be good news to hear that you can still experience the blessing of making a total commitment to Christ!
God calls us to make clear commitments to Him and then to reaffirm these commitments on a regular basis. If we have grown in our love for Christ, or if we feel more part of His body, now may be the time for rededication. Or, perhaps we’ve never made a decision for Christ. Now may be the right time for this. Whatever decision we need to make, I want to encourage us in this . . . If the time is right.
Grace and Peace,
Bro. Mark Anderson
"The Builder's Creed"
April 1, 2009
The Celeste Place Habitat Build had a prayer breakfast Wednesday, April 1st. The event set me to thinking about another kind of construction going on every day. The following poem aptly describes it.
I watched them tearing a building down
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a yo, heave ho, and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and a side wall fell.
I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled?
The men you’d hire if you had to build?"
He laughed and replied, "Oh, no indeed.
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do."
And I asked myself as I went away
"Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care
Who measures life by a rule and a square?
Who gives to his neighbors the best that he can,
Who builds to the scale of a kinder plan?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town
Content with the labor of tearing down?"
What an opportunity we have today! We have twenty-four hours to live and to work for Christ. It’s the only time we have, and it will never come again. He designed it in such a way that we participate in its fashioning. For the most part, it’s made up of our interactions with others. As the poem suggests, we are either construction workers or destruction workers in these interactions.
God is at work building His kingdom in this world, and He calls us to help Him. Our greatest opportunity to help is through the people we meet today, and whether we build up or tear down. It takes skill to build up, i.e. grace, compassion, humility, good will. It takes nothing but base selfishness to tear down.
So, how are we doing in our daily work? I don’t mean the trivial work of making money, career, etc. I mean the important work that has eternal consequences. What are we doing for, or to, those around us? When we understand today in these terms, it takes on a new significance. Every moment is by Him and for Him.
Grace and Peace,
Bro. Mark Anderson