SEPTEMBER 2017 – I
hope you are now settled into your “new normal” with school now back in session
with summer coming quickly to a close and fall on the horizon. We’re so very sorry for our fellow Christians
and our neighbors in Texas and also in Florida who are facing such dire life
circumstances. We are praying for them
daily and it is our pleasure to assist them personally and as a congregation of
the Lord’s church. Thank you for your
generous and regular financial support for our local, national, and world
mission efforts. God bless them and us.
It has been said that every football team could use a player
who could play every position perfectly, who never fumbles the ball or misses a
tackle and who never makes a mistake…but there’s no way to get him to put down
his hot dog and drink and come down out of the stands. There is seldom any shortage of critics in
the stand who say, after a player has made a mistake, just how the play should
have been made. It probably wouldn’t be
too difficult to find a person who would have scored the winning touchdown if
he had been running the ball. You see,
it’s much easier to talk a perfect game than to play one.
The Christian life is a race that is to be run, a fight that
is to be fought, and a life that is to be lived every day, rather than
something that can simply be done sitting on the sideline looking on. In Hebrews 12:1-2 the Bible says; “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that
so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” We must come out of the stands and
participate in the race before us and not just be an onlooker.
There is a race that has to be run, a fight that has to be fought, and a life that has to be lived. In order to race, fight, and live we must "lay aside" whatever it is that is keeping us from racing, fighting, and living and race, fight, and live. Simple. Right? Well, that's another story.
