Put his words into Practice

 We see 2023 coming to an end.  It’s not quite like 2020 where everyone stayed up until midnight to make sure that sucker was out the door, but it included some interesting things, to include:

Tom’s first international medevac.

I heard that prices were higher.

COVID found its way into the montage of other illnesses.  You could get the regular flu again.

VBS was a game-changer.

Campers got the full camp experience, especially those who rode in the van.

We did F4 without food.

We changed our Thanksgiving and Christmas evening services and meals.

We ended the year with the front doors still needing to be replaced. Build Back Better seems to move at its own pace.  I think we are getting close though.

And today, we add a new elder to our ranks.

We also:

Gave out more food than any previous year and had more in reserve.

We helped with various needs for those in and out of our congregation.

We challenged our youth to bring their Bibles with them, something that had been lost over the past few decades.

We took the good news door to door.

We remembered Jesus in the way that he told us to remember him.

We worshiped him in and out of the assembly.

We gave out gospels by the hundreds.

But:

Did we forgive?

Did we reconcile?

Did we love our enemies?

Or:

Did we walk by on the other side of the road?

Did we say, Good enough when it came to working for the Lord?

Did we take a casual approach to our salvation?

Did we say—probably not out loud—but to ourselves: I love being saved from sin and death but this whole doing everything that Jesus told us to do is a bit much.

 Jesus, thank you for saving me. I really needed that.  For real. But could you just let me work some things out my way for a while?  When I’m old and not long for this world, I will come around, but for now, I just need some space.

The last thing that we really need is to have God tell us to do it our way. Our own understanding too often works against what the Lord has in store for us.

This whole trust in the Lord with all of your heart business includes putting the words of our Master into practice.  We need to practice doing things his way.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

We are made right with God by the blood of Jesus but are we truly willing to follow him?

How do we do this in 2024?

We put his words into practice. We do what he told us to do. 

We put his words into practice.

There is more to come. Let’s get ready to do what Jesus told us to do in the year to come.

Amen.