Optional or Vital?

 

Monday, January 31, 2022

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.  Hebrews 10:23-25

I came across a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis the other day about genuine faith:

The oft stated, I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian, will spasm and die out when the threat of persecution comes.  If one can’t commit themselves to the most basic task of the Christian faith when it costs them very little, it is a fanciful dream to believe they will pay the ultimate price when the stakes are highest.[1]

The writer of Hebrews seemed to think the church gathering was vital for several critical issues:

1.    Shoring-up faith that could waver.  Another quote…one I heard drop from the lips of Evangelist Vance Havner when I was attending New Orleans Seminary, was:  Faith that was fickle at the first will fizzle at the finish.  That was a homestyle version of Hebrews.  The basis in fact is that we are prone to wander, we humans.  We need our faith strengthened.

2.    Motivating us in the right direction.  I’ve heard motivational speakers all my life.  Most of them do well, and are helpful; many are less so.  But the motivational forces that have always served to make me a better man are those of personal testimony, whose lives I saw up close over time.  Jerry was a businessman, Ossie, a laborer, and Marshal was a steelworker.  These men helped form me by their character.  I met them all in church.

3.    Encouraging – putting faith’s wheels on the rocky road of this life.  In days like these, with challenges political, societal, personal, medical, and every other way imaginable, it takes faith just to get out of bed in the morning. 

I could and would say so much more about the virtues and benefits of church if we had a couple of months this morning.  Let it suffice here:  it’s VITAL!  And the only evidence I need is what Jesus said: 

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.  John 13:34

For You Today

So, here I am, Monday-Morning-Quarterbacking…but I will press the question, nonetheless:

Did you go yesterday?  And if you did, was it habit, or because it was as vital as your next breath?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] Quote attributed to C.S. Lewis (source uncertain, but it sounds like him, and fits his thinking)

Root System

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.   Hebrews 10:23 - 25 (NLT)

Have you ever wondered why God chose to make the church necessary?  Why gather often, especially with people that can sometimes be irritable, and even unkind?  After all, there are times when it really is like Noah’s ark – salvation to be sure – but smelly and a bit of a problem.  Have you considered the fact that there were porcupines on that small, crowded boat? 

There is a very good reason God chose “church”, calling-out millions of people through the centuries to be one body.  

Popular Christian author and pastor, Max Lucado, wrote:

Questions can make hermits out of us, driving us into hiding.  Yet the cave has no answers.  Christ distributes courage through community; he dissipates doubts through fellowship.  He never deposits all knowledge in one person but distributes pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to many.  When you interlock your understanding with mine, and we share our discoveries, when we mix, mingle, confess and pray, Christ speaks."[1]

The cave has no answers!  This is the reason I choose the church.  I’m a hermit by nature – an introverted loner who chooses the risky company of God’s ark!  Go figure!

In the church-ark you find all kinds of people:

·        Sweet-spirited lambs and treacherous wolves

·        Spiritual schizophrenics and those who are simply faithful

·        Sporadic relatives and surprising strangers

It’s definitely a strange and mixed bag, we, the church!

What’s the point?

The point is that over the years I’ve met just about all of them (er…us)!  And, for the most part, I still choose the church over “no-church”.

Here’s why:

The questions I hear from without the church are cave questions – no valid answers.  They’ve got no basis – no genuine root system that is attached to anything but the nothingness of empty hope. 

The questions I hear from within the church are faith questions – struggle, doubt, fear, anger, and crushed at times – but questions with faith in God who never lets you down!

With all its bugaboos, bruhaha’s, blunders and occasional brutality, this messy ark is my home, my family, friends and safety. 

You are my root system. 

It is Christ in you, and me, which keeps me standing when, without Christ and you, I would have given in to life’s craziness long ago. 

How could I ever leave that? 

Today I’m singing a song

Annie Murray’s song “You Needed Me” could very easily be about me and the way I have been loved by God’s church, and the God of that church.  

It’s my song today:

I cried a tear, you wiped it dry
I was confused, you cleared my mind
I sold my soul, you bought it back for me
And held me up and gave me dignity
Somehow you needed me

You gave me strength to stand alone again
To face the world out on my own again
You put me high upon a pedestal
So high that I could almost see eternity
You needed me, you needed me

And I can't believe it's you
I can't believe it's true
I needed you and you were there

And I'll never leave, why should I leave?
I'd be a fool 'cause I finally found someone who really cares

You held my hand when it was cold
When I was lost you took me home
You gave me hope when I was at the end
And turned my lies back into truth again
You even called me "friend"

You gave me strength to stand alone again
To face the world out on my own again
You put me high upon a pedestal
So high that I could almost see eternity
You needed me, you needed me

Alone, I couldn’t sing a note on key.  But this is sweet music – God loves and needs us.  And we are roots together in His vineyard!

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[1] Lucado, Max, Imagine Your Life Without Fear, Thomas Nelson, 2009