Our here it seems that God has a whole lot of competition to deal with on Sunday mornings. There is NY Giants football in the winter, pop warner football in the fall, and don't even mention the Jersey Shore in the summer. When it comes to holidays like Memorial Day, you can be assured that people in the northeast have to begin preparing on Sunday for their cookouts on Monday, so they stay home from church.
I try not to let that bother me, but I know that God is everything to me, and I can give Him a couple of hours on Sunday to worship His name, and then go and do the other things that I want to do to get ready for Monday. So as you can expect, I was not pleased when our attendance was way down today, but I told the members who were there that the Lord was pleased with their faithfulness in their worship. I told them that God never lets our faithfulness go unrewarded.
Jamal really ministered to us today during our worship period by bringing back an old hymn of the church, One More Time, One More Time, I'm glad to be in the service, One More Time. It got so good that I had to get a little piece of it myself. I am extremely happy with my music ministry, they are outstanding young men who really love Jesus and love what they do for Him. God Be Praised!
I concluded our series on the Beatitudes entitled Developing Christian Character, with an exposition on Matthew 5:10-12, which I labeled The Paradox of Persecution. Jesus closes out this section of his great Sermon on the Mount, with a warning to the church that there will be a wave of persecution on the horizon for those who consider themselves to be children of the King. He tells us that if we follow the first 7 principles of the Beatitudes, we can be assured that persecution will come to us. If we are not feeling the pressures of persecution, then it is a clear sign that we are not following at least one of the first 7 principles. But the paradox of our persecution is that God blesses those who are willing to endure suffering as a child of God. I am thankful that God will bless us for patiently enduring the persecution of this world.
3 comments:
Reverend, be encouraged, we experience the same unfaithfulness here on the Westcoast with Sundays before the holiday. In addition to the holiday, the LA Marathon was changed from March to Memorial this year, so as people would have it they prepared for BBQ and running but not running for Jesus. People don't love the church like they used to.
Keep your head up!! Holidays are tough for us all, not just in Jersey.
God can do more with a faithful few than He can with a crowd without commitment!!
Pastor Mann, good look at a very rich text. I happen to agree with Pastor Smith whatever you do please do not move to the west coast (sunny southern California) is the worst place to pastor. If it mist a rain people will not come to church if the Lakers are playing forget it and if it’s a holiday or too much traffic or if Santa Clause is coming to town you can forget it. Los Angeles is just that Lost. I digress however, keep plodding away and the Lord will say well done.
Stuck in California,
Ron
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