When I read Luke chapter 7, I first thought of those who had grown up in the church and, in theory, did not lead such a troubled life as those who only joined the church later in their lives.
As I was thinking about this passage, I had another insight and realised that this applies particularly to those who are in the church today.
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”(Lk 7:47)
When many of us came to the church, we were living a terrible life, some with pasts we regretted, others from broken families, victims of abuse and misery. We found Jesus who gave us our dignity back.
Then our prayers poured out from our soul and we would seek for His Spirit every day. Time went by … we were baptised, we changed our ways, we stopped living in sin. Some had their encounters with God and little by little, we did not have so much to be ashamed of any more.
Next, we became more committed to activities in the church: youth group, evangelism, assistants’ group, leading Caleb, belonging to Sisterhood and we were entrusted with many responsibilities and duties. We learnt how to use our spare time in the church.
We opened a “credit account” with God based on our good deeds. Knowing we were sinners, we also felt we did not live in sin. Today we could only be blamed for a word, a thought, something we didn’t do or an inappropriate gesture.
Automatically we started giving, giving and giving. Without paying much attention, we replaced our intimate moments with the Holy Spirit by praying for lost souls, for a project, for blessings, for our love life.
This is the quickest way to become lukewarm and cold though being inside the church and doing the Work of God. We live on the merits and good deeds, no longer on our total commitment to and relationship with our Lord, our Creator, our Saviour!
One who is born of God, knows that no matter what he does, he still has an unsettled debt to His Father. When he stands before the magnitude and greatness of His Creator, he understands that he is the same filthy and unworthy person he was when he first came to Jesus.
He may now be redeemed but he does not live on credit. The Holy Spirit is his priority, his strength and the guarantee of his salvation.
2 comments:
Dear Mrs. Marcia,
This word is very strong, if there is anything in this world that we need to take care of is our intimacy with the Holy Spirit. If we do not watch it can happen to anyone. The days goes by and we get more and more busy, but our time with God must be our priority always.
Thank you for this word.
It blessed me a lot.
I believe along with TIME people seem to forget where they came from and what they used to do for God to speak to them or even how hard they used to sacrifise just to be closer to Him. And sometimes not knowing that time is our greatest enemy we fall.
Puleng Ngaoto brixton UK
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