WATCHWORD:
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!” John 14:6-7 The Message
Meditation:
God-In-A-Box
True story: Several years ago, a friend of mine was asked by his new pastor to refrain from teaching Sunday school unless he was baptized. When he responded that he had been baptized as an infant, the pastor replied that was a dedication not a “real” baptism. So, disagreeing with the pastor and praying about this, he and his wife decided to leave that church for another.
Possibly true story: A young man walks into church wearing blue jeans that have holes in the knees and a work shirt. When thanking the minister for a fine sermon, he was advised that he should reconsider what he wears to church, to be more respectful. The next Sunday the same young man attends services wearing the exact same clothes he had on before. When the pastor again chastises him for his clothing, the young man replied, “I asked God what I should wear and He told me, He didn’t know what to say, He had never been to that church.”
When your seven-year-old granddaughter tells you that “God is dead” and that is what she learned in her church, how would you respond? You probably would have been taken-aback, as I was. But what are we learning in our churches today? What are we teaching? What are the “rules” governing baptism, communion, kneeling or not kneeling, the “proper” costume, who can preach and who cannot, etc. Are we defining “Christians” as those who follow all the rules? What? With all those rules, do we need Christ to die on that cross?
Rules, structure, organization, denominations, churchiness…I wonder if we have packaged God by our own designs, to the point where we obscure the Almighty. Some wise person has said, people come to God when they stop being religious! You must be “re-baptized”? That makes no sense at all.
JD Philips, in his book Your God is too Small, makes this statement: “(Too many) churches appear to be saying…you will jump through our particular hoop or sign on our particular dotted line then we will introduce you to God. But if not, then there is no God for you.” As I said, God is obscured.
God in a box? No! I agree with Philips, that if God is God, He’s big, and generous and magnificent, and I don’t think that anyone or any institution can say they’ve a corner on God or shut Him up in their particular box of rules. What say you?
Did We Need Christ to Die?
And having cried out with a loud voice, He bowed His head and died. into the hands of His Father, Christ commended His spirit; into the hands of men He placed pardon. He has fulfilled everything…there was nothing more to give. “It is finished”, He said.
Do I have no regard for the death of Christ our Lord? Looking at me from the cross, with a heart filled with love, he says, “I thirst.” “I thirst for you.” Daily, His sacrifice is renewed upon the altar, and daily I sin. Lord, how long will I continue to San? (Pilgrim’s Guide Cursillos in Christianity)
Closing Prayer:
Heavenly and Almighty God, I come before you humbled and sorrowful, aware of my sin, and ready to repent. Lord, forgive me for I have sinned before you. Wash away my sin, purify me, and help me to turn from this sin. Lead me to walk in your way instead, leaving behind my old life and starting a new life in you. Amen.
