For thought and meditation

[rl69]

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you… LUKE 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20, Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option

[Wayne Smith]

Amen. Very timely and appropriate warning. Very many in the Church are very good Churchians and not Christians at all. Even in the choir loft and pulpit we find good Churchians who have no real relationship with Christ, and God is all about relationship and us knowing Him. He worked hard throughout the Old Testament to be known to His people, but thy ignored Him. He warned them and begged them to remember Him and what He has done for them, they ignored Him. Christ came, they rejected him, the religious leaders of the day actively rejected Him and plotted His death.

Let's us not make the same mistake - get to know God and He will reveal Himself to you. Worship God and find a Church where others worship God, not the Pastor, not the Church, and not themselves. There you will grow.