I think about the times that we live in. I think about how the Lord had US to be born for such a time as this! WOW! Some people talk about how exciting it was for the first Christians to be used by God to usher in the church age, but He choose US to be born at this time, to help usher in the End of the Age and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. What an exciting time He chose us to be born in! But what are we doing about it?
I think about what Jesus said in Matthew 24:36-39 that in the Last Days people will be “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” just like in Noah’s day before the flood. People going about their own lives, which is good to a degree, but at the same time, are we focused on Jesus at all and what he has for us to do as soldiers in His great Army, or are we AWOL (absent without leave)?
Everything the Lord does today begins in the local church. If you say, “Well, not in MY local church. It’s dead!” Then find yourself one that is alive, that doesn’t compromise the Word and understands what the times are that we are living in. Come check us out!
So many times as Pastor Samples and I look out across the congregation I instantly know, at just a brief glance who is and isn’t there at a given service. I know the faces of those who are there at every service and every special event. I know that they tithe and give, that they serve to help make everything run smoothly. I also know the faces of those who aren’t here again! I see the faces of their children and know of their future just by observing the church for decades, whose children will continue on with their Christian heritage and live victorious Christian lives and who will fall by the wayside into the world and who may literally end up dead in a ditch! It makes my heart cry with an ache that must be just a touch of what Jesus’ heart feels.
I know what Jesus meant when He said in Revelation 3:15, 16 (New Living Translation) “I know ALL the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like warm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!”
People like this are useless to Him! If they are hot – Praise God their hand is to the plow and they are working in His church. If they are cold, then they aren’t even Born Again yet and we can go out there and bring them in. If they are just lukewarm, it seems that all the talking in the world can’t yank them off that fence rail with one foot dangling in the world and one foot, occasionally dangling in the church. Useless! They can’t be counted on for anything, only the fact that you can count on the fact that they can’t be counted on!
Oh, the children! I wonder at how parents can’t look beyond their own selfish fleshly desires for worldly things, to dangle their children over the edge of destruction! Hosea 4:6 KJV sums it all up, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I WILL ALSO FORGET YOUR CHILDREN.”
Is it that God just loves going around seeing children’s lives destroyed? Heavens no! But it is up to us! Can YOU be counted on to help build His church for His sake, for your sake, for your children’s sake?