Tuesday's Thoughts (replacing Monday's Musings)

The past couple of days have been very long days (somewhere in excess of 27 hours in those 2 days). That is my excuse for not posting yesterday. Sunday was a good day. It was to be my first Sunday of not teaching Sunday School in 3 years, but a phone call Sunday morning left a class without a teacher, so ... in I went. My sermon went much better in my "practice time" early Sunday morning than it did in the Worship service. But God is gracious and many people commented on what they got out of the message. Just another reminder that it is not about me. Our time of worship was okay and one of our youth sang a special in song and did an excellent job. Our attendance was good (that is 4 good weeks in a row!).

The message was from I Corinthians 9:24-27, the title asked the question "What are your intentions?". Focusing on the fact that we need to live with intentionality and not move through life on autopilot. I also asked "How is your spiritual work ethic?". Not that we earn our salvation, but that we need to be working at our relationship with Christ. Grace is free, but following Christ requires much work. It is a somewhat confusing reality. The point is that we need to be living on purpose. Following Christ's example on purpose. Serving others and Christ on purpose. This does not happen automatically. I suggested a silly word picture, that we need to exchange our spiritual automatic transmission for a manual one. It might mean some stuttering starts and popped clutches but that is preferred to living in first gear spiritually the rest of our lives.

Sunday evening we had a very good time of discussion on the morning message and taking a few steps further. Attendance was pitiful, but it was a good time.

Sunday afternoon I went to visit someone in the hospital in a city about an hour away. After the service Sunday evening we had a time with a family in church eating burgers and playing some games.

A good day.

Here's hoping you are shifting into a deeper and growing relationship with Christ instead of living on cruise control.