September 11: Luke 6:6-11
Key Verse: Luke 6:11
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Devotion:
This sort of thing makes me mad even when I read about it so many years after it happened; but still, this seems to happen in our modern churches around the world nowadays. Sadly some church leaders will do whatever they can to uphold the letter of the law about what their ‘church’ stands for instead of following the love of Christ as He asked us to.
Yes I deliberately put ‘church’ in quotes because we have to ask ourselves the question – are we the church of Christ if we are more concerned about the local rules and regulations than we are about following what our Church Leader has asked of us? Because this is what I see happening in this recount from Luke.
We may not think we are to blame because we are doing whatever we have done for many years now and nobody has complained (much) so why should we change? Jesus Christ does not change, but He certainly used very different ways to reach all the different people He reached with the gospel. If we are not willing to accommodate the different people in our community then we are not really part of the community!
We have to trust God He will continue to guide us in appropriate ways to reach out to the people He has put in our lives. He has used a vast variety of people to reach an even wider variety of people. He has not asked us to become introverts who only do the things we are comfortable with doing. He is asking us to be disciples who go out and make disciples...
Points to Ponder:
Do you stick to tried ans tested ways of being church?
Are you willing to try something different to encourage someone new in?