Yesterday's message was from 1 Thessalonians 5:12-23 and was about making a "to do" list. The wonderful thing is that lists do help us do many of the things that we want and need to do. In this passage there are a dozen things that we should be doing as Christians but for one reason or another we just don't get round to it. List making is helpful but a list doesn't cause us"to do" the things that has to do with our want to and our will do; in other words living for Jesus has to do with the heart. So will you, from your heart, make the list, do it, and share with me and the other readers the one thing on the list you need the most encouragement to keep on doing? It will be great someday to hear a "TA Da" from our Lord!

Every once in a while a pastor will hear someone say, "that was a good sermon or that was a great message". Pastor's strive for that response from the people because it indicates to them that the message was heard and, we hope, received. The word good usually means beneficial and when the Word is received in a good for me attitude God is pleased.
The word great, however, puzzles me a little bit. Great can mean a lot of volume, or stuff, or lengthy. So does it mean the message was too long, stuffy, and loud? I guess maybe it could mean excellence. In that case we pastors are thankful for this is what we strive for in the preaching of the Word. It's a goal to do what we do for the Lord with excellence.
Sometimes people will leave and say "nice tie, pastor". Now that comment sets a pastor back a little because it carries the idea that the person didn't get much from the message that day but wanted to say something nice.
Last night the pastor had a nice tie on but the message was good, great and excellent, exalting our living God, edifying the Saint, evangelizing the sinner. What do you say to the pastors about the Word when you hear it?

Last night we were blessed to have an evening of "Spirituals". It was informative and inspiring and created and evening of joy and happiness through an evening of great music. The old negro spirituals came out of the hardest of times yet were filled with hope and foot tapping, hand clapping, heart moving rhythm. It left the people who wrote and sang it happy when they were done. So last night the people who were there left with a smile on their face and a bounce in their step.
Yet as I thought about the evening there were two things that went through my mind. The first is common to pastors and that was simply how can I convince God's people to come to our services? The attendance was good yet it could have been better. The benefit to God's people was wonderful as we learned how God used music to encourage and build up the lives of people living in the worst of conditions and times. It was an encouraging evening. I only wished more of God's people could have been blessed.
The other thing that went through my mind was how God's people have fought over music throughout the history of the church. This music was never allowed in our white churches in the days of slavery because it came from heathen Africa. Little did we know that some of these slaves had been reached with the Gospel before there were taken into slavery. It seems in every generation God's people struggle with music rather than to let music bless them and grow them in the faith.
We were blessed last night and thanking the Lord for people of faith who wrote and sang of this faith from their heart and soul. Will you let music encourage you and build you up, even if it move your foot before it moves your heart?

I like that worship service! I hear that once in a while and can't help but wonder if our God could ever say that about the service. In our seeker sensitive services we try so hard to have a worship service that people like I can't help but wonder if we don't leave God out of the picture. It seems the music has to be to our taste, the order of service needs to please us, (please nothing different) and everything within a certain time slot or we're upset. Why is it what we get out of the service and not what God gets out of it? Do we come to give God His rightful honor or come to take from Him another blessing? Maybe it's time to change our attitude toward worship and make it about God and not us. Isn't He worth it?

After the message yesterday someone asked me why life is so full of vanity. I replied that life isn't but life without God at the center is vanity and empty. Many times in the pursuit of experiencing life's things we are so busy and intense it doesn't seem this way but at the pauses it floods in on us. Life has shown so many people successful "under the sun" who are restless with what they have and are and just have to go on and try something new hoping that the new thing will quench the thirst for meaning in their life. Only when God is in His proper place in a life does that life find fullness. Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it in it's fullness" (John 10:10). Have you ever known anyone who tried and was successful in finding what the world offered but was still empty?

Nothing to follow up the sermon from yesterday, is it possible? "Some people are like seed along the path, where the Word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan come and takes away the Word that was sown in them". (Mark 4:15) Did this ever happen to you? God wants us to do "Better"!

I didn't go to church yesterday because of my fall so I attended by way of the computer. It was great! I sang to the top of my lungs, I bowed my head and prayed with the Pastor, I listened attentively to the message and even heard Pastor Barbee say "the most miserable Christian is the one who tries to live without Christ". I would have even given some money if the ushers could have gotten an offering plate in front of me. I praise the Lord for our times and the electronics of our day.
Yet I sensed a missing ingredient of Church. Part of our "coming together" is touching one another. Whether it's just greeting each other with a handshake or giving a hug, fellowship includes a touch. I have heard people say so often when given a hug "I needed that". Yesterday when I attended church I was so blessed but really missed the touch of God's people. How about you? Have you ever felt that way? And just think, I'm not a "huggy" person.