Luke 4:42-44
As one who is a follower,
and that term is conclusive of myself, for from a child I’ve been following
someone or something. At first, it was
mother, then my brother and sister, and as I grew it became the kids at the big
park down the street, and about Jr. high it was Tyrone. In high school it was whoever was popular and
as you can see I was an easy target for a world system that has plans to get it
needs met outside of God’s authority. For many years I tried to be religious enough
to fit in with those whom I went to church with, and yet, not to allow myself
to be molded by its teaching, in James letter to Jewish Christians in chapter 1
verse 8, he nails people like me. These
are his words; “Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
But
the good news is that people like me can also be influenced by people of faith,
and one day a man who I looked up to ask me to go to a Bible study, now make no
mistake I was not open to a Bible study, but was very curious as to why my
barber would go to one. And that was the
first time someone had ask me to go or be part of something that I associated
with going to church, so I went out of curiosity. It was at a Holiday Inn that served a buffet
lunch and of all the men attending only one was a preacher. Now this was very interesting, I was not asked
to sign up, they did not take a roll, and I was not invited to the preacher’s
church, they did not even take an offering.
It was my very first experience with men who were all messed up, but had
began to follow Jesus and were seeking in the Bible ways to do that. It was almost six months before I came to
this understanding, these men with clay feet had a relationship with the Christ
I was only informed about; they were followers of Jesus and I was a follower of
the world system, I was unstable in all my ways. The good news is one night in Victoria,
Texas, I opened a hotel Bible and read Romans 10:9, and by the faith God gave
me and the grace He extended to me, I became a follower of Christ.
We
read yesterday about Jesus going to Capernaum and teaching in the synagogue and
healing the man with the demon and then He went to dinner with Simon and healed
his mother-in-law and how the crowd showed up with the sick at Simon’s door and
Jesus healed them. It is now the next
morning, and as it became daylight Jesus departs to a desolate place, this will
become something Jesus will do often, finding time to be alone with His
Father. And the people found him and
they were not willing to let Him go.
I’ve
been a member of that group of people, we would refer to them as a church, they
had found the Messiah, or maybe just the doctor who could keep them well. They were not interested in their neighbors,
much less the world, they were far from being a kingdom minded people. So Jesus had this to say to them and to us; “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of
God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”
Jan and I are part of a kingdom minded church at Oakwood in
New Braunfels, Texas, it has a slogan it lives by, intentionally engaging
others with the love of Jesus Christ in the New Braunfels area and all over the
world. We are encouraged to go outside
of the neighborhoods, our businesses, with our families and as a body of followers
of Christ, we use the talents and resources God has entrusted to us for
engaging others with the love that Jesus has shown to each of us.
For years I was a member of local churches that did not
grasp the kingdom was much bigger than that local body, they were good people,
loved Jesus, but the world system had a heavy influence on how they functioned. Sometimes they seem to be competing with
others of like mind that followed Jesus.
Pastor Larry York of Crossroads in the Woodlands was used of
God to show Jan and I what a kingdom minded church looks like and the joy of
giving as a body of believers to the world outside the doors of the
church. My prayer is that you will
intentionally engage others with the love of Jesus Christ.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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