Consider Palm Sunday…
Last year the Lord honored us with a beautiful Palm Sunday outside the sanctuary, our first covid Sunday outside and it would be our last service outside. We decided the best thing we could do was to trust God as we always do, in all things…cancer, liver disease, heart disease, flu, broken bones, car accidents, in all things we are to, and did, glorify and trust Him for protection.
When we consider what has happened in the world, not just our country, but the world, and in that situation, which I thought would draw people to God and make them eager to seek his face, wave palm branches and proclaim his goodness and mercy…has not happened.
As a matter of fact, the devil has made this a time of separation, self-focus, and withdrawal from normal worship activities, family gathering, school activities, visitations and even funerals. Sadly, our churches are more empty now than ever before. Many in the ranks of religious reporting say closed churches may never reopen. In times of great distress, as what we have experienced in America, is the way that God awakens his people to seek him rather than self. It is a time for self-examination, positional spiritual checkup, to ask if we are serving the LORD or serving ourselves.
Or is it a purging of the church as God has promised he will perform in the last days.
When Jesus entered the city on Palm Sunday, there was false elation at who was coming into town. Was it the king that the Jews wanted, the conqueror of Rome? Was it the King that Jesus told them he was, the conqueror of sin and death? A few days later the ones shouting, “Hosanna”, were now shouting, “crucify him”.
We know as called believers, the who of Jesus Christ. We can trust him at all times and in all circumstances. This belief and trust comes from the place called “faith”. It is not a place of faith alone or by works alone, but it is a faith “that works” because of belief in Salvation through Jesus Christ alone. In Jesus we have defeated sin and death. We have a new Master.
Are we shouting Hosanna, and giving lifelong Worship? Or are we apathetic and unmoved by the sacrificial Atonement we have been offered and therefore have lip service faith?
“Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? And in your name cast out demons? And in your name done many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from me you workers of iniquity.’” Matt. 7:22-23.
Consider your faith, what is it, and where is it…
Brother Randy