Our culture these days speaks highly of integrity, but then encourages us to act against our integrity. We make promises to employees, and then lay them off when they become inconvenient. As employees, we move on when we find a job that pays $2 an hour more than our existing one. Everything in our life, it seems, is up for bid – our job, our vehicles, our groceries, our clothing, our loans, our relationships. Only the currency changes – is it cash or is it physical beauty? And so we do not have integrity. Instead, we daily conduct an auction about the things of life – what we buy, what we sell, our relationships – both with people and with God. In our culture, we are always asking: Can I get a better job? Can I refinance my home loan? Is there a better church? Can I find a better spouse?
Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18; Psalm 34:15-22; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69
In our Old Testament reading, Joshua had taken command of the wandering Israelites after Moses had died. Joshua had led the people into the promised land, defeating the people of the land and allocating the land to the Twelve Tribes. Finally, Joshua had grown old, and it was time for him to die. So he called them all together for one last speech. He spoke of their history, beginning with Terah, the father of Abraham. He spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He spoke of Egypt and Moses and Aaron and what the Lord did. He told of crossing the Jordan and the defeat of Jericho. He told how it was God that led them into the land, defeated the people of the land, and allowed them to eat from vineyards and olive groves they did not plant.
And Joshua said, it was time for them to be of one mind, to have integrity. Many of the Israelites had brought with them gods from the old days and still worshiped them, as well as Yahweh, the name of the One God which God had given to Moses, God who had brought them out of Egypt and into the promised land. The people of Israel, you see, liked to hedge their bets, they liked to keep several baskets of eggs, not putting everything into one basket. They worshiped Yahweh, but they also worshiped other gods, wooden and metal idols they had brought with them from Egypt.
(In most English translations of the Bible, YHWH is translated as LORD with all capital letters. While we don't know the exact pronounciation of YHWH because early Hebrew did not have symbols for vowels, most scholars think Yahweh - "I am that I am" - is the most likely translation.)
In our culture today, we are much the same. We say we worship God, Yahweh, but we also behave during the week as if we worship money, on Saturdays, we worship the Mountaineers with the largest worship service in the state. On Sundays, we worship the Steelers, other days we worship food, our vehicles, celebrities with pretty faces and great bodies, even politicians, perhaps we spend our days thinking and planning about where the next drink will come from. Some worship women, others worship men, others worship at the altar of a chemical. We even worship the building in which we worship, its décor, the songs we sing, the style of music we use. These things have become as important or more important than our true God.
There is the story of the missionary who traveled to a village in India in the 1970's. He had brought with him the common print from the 1930’s or 40’s of Jesus, you know the one, it is found in almost every Methodist Church. A man came to a tent service and appeared moved by the message, asking if he could have a copy of the print, that he might worship Jesus. The missionary gladly gave him a copy. A few days later, he visited the man in his home, where he was pleased to see the print had been given a place of honor, with lit candles and incense burning below. He was please, that is, until he noticed on the wall there was also a small statue of Genesha, the elephant headed Hindu god that Babar is based upon, and a photograph of John F. Kennedy, all with lit candles and incense.
We laugh, but we do the same thing in America – we just don’t recognize what we are doing.
Joshua put the decision to the people in front of him. He said to fear the LORD and worship Him in sincerity and truth. He told them to get rid of the other gods, but most importantly, to choose who they would worship. And Joshua made the commitment: “As for me and my family, we will worship the LORD.”
Notice two things. Joshua made a public commitment, and Joshua not only committed himself, but he committed his family to worship Yahweh.
You know, it is actually fairly easy to commit yourself to the worship of God. We begin it with a ten minute ceremony and a baptism. Then, it is a matter of priorities, choosing each day to separate ourselves from the world and follow Christ’s teachings.
But committing our family for the worship of God requires a bit more work. After all, we have to make sure the kids get up and come to church. We have to begin to talk about God and Christ as realities in the world, rather than ignore them everyday as most of the world does. And we have to make difficult decisions – soccer or church?
Research done by Focus on the Family and the Nazarene Church about fifteen years ago showed something interesting. Of all the people who were professing Christians as adults, 86% of them had made the decision by age 14. Another 10% came to know Christ by age 30, and only 4% came to know Christ after age 30. The lesson to be learned is that bringing children to church at a young age is critical for their ultimate salvation. If you want your children and grandchildren to join you in New Jerusalem one day and avoid the lake of fire, the path of salvation needs to be walked with them in the age 4-14 window. Those who guide them along that path are making a huge difference in their eternal lives.
The Chinese Communist Party understands this dynamic. In China, children of any age are not allowed to attend church services. This appears to be how the Party hopes to eventually eliminate the worship of any god except the Party.
But here, we still have the right to teach our children and grandchildren about the Living God. And yet, because of our culture, we often do not teach, but we give our children the right to choose. In a day when almost everyone attended a Christian church, the right to choose meant a choice between Methodist, Baptist, or Catholic. All of these choices ended up with the child’s salvation and eternity with God, so a bit of choice was warranted. But today, giving the choice means a choice between church or no church, between Christianity and atheism, a choice between eternity spent with God – or eternity spent in a lake of fire.
The Apostle Peter, the big burly fisherman, was the first to recognize that the choices were not between several good ways to salvation, but between salvation and no salvation.
Jesus had continued to speak to His core twelve disciples, and a much larger group of tag-a-long disciples. He said, “The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your fathers ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
You can imagine his listeners turning to each other. “He wants us to eat His flesh and drink His blood? Yuck!” and another saying, “Do you think He’s lost it?” Still another deciding that this Jesus Way was beginning to look like some sort of grape Kool-aid cult.
And so, politely, some said, “This teaching is hard! Who can accept it?”
But, as usual, Jesus knew what the muttering meant.
“Does this offend you?” And you can just see them looking at their feet as He spoke up.
“Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” Referring once more to Himself, He asked them, if this bothers them, what they would do if they saw Jesus going up to Heaven?
And then He partially explains the meaning behind His words.
“The Spirit is the One who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all.” He’s saying that He’s talking about Spiritual flesh, Spiritual food, Spiritual blood, Spiritual Drink. It is a connection with the Holy Spirit of God that gives life. Without that connection, which usually comes to us during the baptism ceremony, we are dead people walking, like zombies going through an almost-life. But with that connection, with that Holy Spirit inside us, refreshed regularly with the spiritual flesh and blood of Christ, we come alive, learning to live a complete life, an eternal life, an abundant, joyful life.
Have you ever noticed that an infant or a toddler is not quite alive, living a life that is oh so limited to eating, drinking, puking, and maybe crawling? But suddenly, they begin to speak, they connect with the world around them, they become a person instead of a baby. They learn to walk, they take a-hold of anything they can get their hands around, they talk, they laugh, they ask questions. And pretty soon, you have a person who may be short in stature, but they are fully aware of the world around them. The difference between an infant and a four-year-old – that’s the difference between the walking dead to the spirit, and those that are animated by the Holy Spirit of God!
Jesus continues: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Have you noticed that most people speak words that are concerned with material things, and they like to speak words to others that hurt them, wound them, cut them, kill their spirits? The words most people speak lead us to the grave – think of your friends – how many of them are really good at lifting your spirit, at lifting you out of sadness, at giving you a love of life – and how many of them think the way to lift you up is murder another with words through gossip, pessimism, and sarcasm?
Can you move in the habit of speaking uplifting words? “I loved what you said today,” you can tell your friend. You will give others life! Or you can tear people down, murdering them with your words. “Why did you make THOSE comments today?” you tell your friend, and the knife goes in just a bit deeper.
This also happens to churches. When you are constantly telling your friends, neighbors, and family how good and joyful and uplifting your church is, the Spirit tugs at them and says “We ought to go, too!” But if you are constantly complaining about people in the church, pointing out that the church is smaller today than a couple years ago – never mind that almost everyone who has left has transferred directly to the church of Heaven – if you are always putting a wet blanket on the fire that the Spirit wants to kindle, that no one will want to be involved with your church. We must do as Jesus, speak words of spirit and life.
So why don’t we always want to speak uplifting words?
Jesus pointed out to his listeners. “But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray Him.) He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
There are always some people who will choose not to believe, choose not to follow, choose not serve the Lord. They may come to church, they may even be baptized, but deep down, they don’t believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God, God the Son! Jesus and God know who these people are, even from the beginning. But they have still decided that the choice is ours to make. We get to decide whether to believe or not, to watch Jesus or to follow Jesus, to serve the One Living God or try to serve multiple gods. We decide, but Jesus and God have always know the decision we will make.
How can this be? Some people always want get into a debate about free will and determinism. Let me ask you – Even with your wisdom, did you know what flavor of ice cream your children would order even before you went to the ice cream shop? Did you still give them the choice? God is the same way with us. Knowing does not mean determining.
Many of the wider crowd of disciples left Jesus that day, for, just as Jesus had said earlier, they were following Him for earthly bread, not for eternal bread. They had followed Him to see if he was going to multiply the loaves again, like He had a couple of days earlier.
So, after the crowd began to leave, He turned to the core Twelve, who had always been personally chosen, whom Jesus had hand-picked, who were there every Sunday. And He asked them – “Are you going to go away, too?”
And Peter, the big burly fisherman whose mouth was always the first to speak, the man who had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God the day that Jesus asked them, “Who do you think I am?” Simon Peter, Simon the Rock, said, “Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!”
There is a point in every person’s life where a deep commitment has to be made to Christ. But I’m not talking about the day you “take Jesus into your heart.” I’m not talking about the day you announce that Jesus is the Son of God to a friend. I’m not talking about the day you’re baptized. All of those days are important, they are critical, they are eternally significant.
But... imagine that you are walking deep in the woods up in the mountains. You come across a cabin. Now you and I are from West Virginia – we know that some people who live in cabins deep in the woods up in the mountains don’t like strangers.
And so you come up to the front steps of the cabin, and the long-haired man comes to the door. He asks you a couple of questions, which you don't clearly understand, but then he invites you to come on up. There are a couple of steps to climb, a front porch to sit on. You can’t see inside the house whether it is a nice, comfortable place – or whether someone you can’t see standing in the dark has a weapon aimed at you.
Those days you declared your decision for Christ are the days you put your feet on the steps leading up to God’s front porch. Baptism is the day you sat down on that front porch. But there is a further step to be made.
It is the day you choose to walk into God’s living room. It is the day when you have decided that you are willing to trust Christ in His house. It is the day you have decided that this Jesus is trustworthy and will be the best friend you’ve ever had, the only one who will never betray you. It is the day when you decide that nothing in the world outside is worth what you will find in God’s house, sitting in that living room talking with Christ.
Oh yes, the world is still there. Somewhere is a great sale to buy things at, a football game to watch, an employer that will pay you a bit more, a pretty girl or a handsome guy to meet, another great tv show to watch, a vacation place to travel to. But in that living room is Jesus, and He has all the time in the world for you. Do you have the rest of your life to learn from Him? Would you bring your family into that living room to meet Him and learn from Him? Or is there something else outside that is calling you away?
You can decide to drop by occasionally – or you can decide that nothing in the world outside is worth what you will find sitting in that living room talking with Christ. You can decide to spend the rest of your life with Christ.
Peter made that decision that day when He said, “Lord, who will we go to?”
Peter had followed Jesus long enough he understood that there was no other option. He told Jesus: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!”
Yet, in our American culture, we still want to leave room for an auction. We keep looking for a “better deal”. We search for meaning in movies, find ourselves with financial funds and look for purpose in products. But Peter – not always the sharpest tool in the shed, had the answer that day. “Jesus, you have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God! Where else could we go?”
You and your children will not find eternal life in the gods of sports – although playing sports are good for the development of the body and character. You and your children will not find the words of eternal life in the gods of academics, although academics are good for the development of the mind and the ability to speak well. You and your children will not find God in video games nor in crafts, nor in fishing or hunting or in the chores of life – although each of these has some good to commend it to us.
But you and your children will find God by four, practical commitments:
First, you and your children must read and study the word of God, the Holy Bible - the more often the better. This is how we understand the character of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit.
Second, you and your children must practice daily two-way prayer – talking to God and listening to the response from the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit. This is how we find the will of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit for our lives.
Third, you and your children must spend time in small groups with other Christian friends, sharing God-sightings, praying for each other, debating the meaning of Scripture. This is how we gain deeper understandings of the love of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit.
And fourth, you and your children must join with others on the path of Holiness, the means of Grace where God speaks to us and feeds us and steps into our lives through baptism, through holy communion, through regular church attendance. This is how God, Christ, and Holy Spirit give us all good things.
There is a word which is commonly used about those who wish to follow Jesus. The word is “repentance” – the Greek word, metanoia, literally means to “rethink”, to change our way of thinking about the world, about God, about what is important in life. Repentance comes first – rethinking – before anything else.
If you will do these things – rethinking the priorities in your life and making a commitment to walk into God’s living room, up the steps to the front porch, even past the front porch, and into the living room, to sit in a deep cushioned chair in conversation with Christ, to trust Him completely with your life – not just a little bit, but completely – then you will begin very soon to experience the joy of eternal life, an eternal, abundant life that begins here, right here in this life, maybe even this morning and continues throughout the next ten thousand years and beyond.
In our culture today, we are much the same. We say we worship God, Yahweh, but we also behave during the week as if we worship money, on Saturdays, we worship the Mountaineers with the largest worship service in the state. On Sundays, we worship the Steelers, other days we worship food, our vehicles, celebrities with pretty faces and great bodies, even politicians, perhaps we spend our days thinking and planning about where the next drink will come from. Some worship women, others worship men, others worship at the altar of a chemical. We even worship the building in which we worship, its décor, the songs we sing, the style of music we use. These things have become as important or more important than our true God.
There is the story of the missionary who traveled to a village in India in the 1970's. He had brought with him the common print from the 1930’s or 40’s of Jesus, you know the one, it is found in almost every Methodist Church. A man came to a tent service and appeared moved by the message, asking if he could have a copy of the print, that he might worship Jesus. The missionary gladly gave him a copy. A few days later, he visited the man in his home, where he was pleased to see the print had been given a place of honor, with lit candles and incense burning below. He was please, that is, until he noticed on the wall there was also a small statue of Genesha, the elephant headed Hindu god that Babar is based upon, and a photograph of John F. Kennedy, all with lit candles and incense.
We laugh, but we do the same thing in America – we just don’t recognize what we are doing.
Joshua put the decision to the people in front of him. He said to fear the LORD and worship Him in sincerity and truth. He told them to get rid of the other gods, but most importantly, to choose who they would worship. And Joshua made the commitment: “As for me and my family, we will worship the LORD.”
Notice two things. Joshua made a public commitment, and Joshua not only committed himself, but he committed his family to worship Yahweh.
You know, it is actually fairly easy to commit yourself to the worship of God. We begin it with a ten minute ceremony and a baptism. Then, it is a matter of priorities, choosing each day to separate ourselves from the world and follow Christ’s teachings.
But committing our family for the worship of God requires a bit more work. After all, we have to make sure the kids get up and come to church. We have to begin to talk about God and Christ as realities in the world, rather than ignore them everyday as most of the world does. And we have to make difficult decisions – soccer or church?
Research done by Focus on the Family and the Nazarene Church about fifteen years ago showed something interesting. Of all the people who were professing Christians as adults, 86% of them had made the decision by age 14. Another 10% came to know Christ by age 30, and only 4% came to know Christ after age 30. The lesson to be learned is that bringing children to church at a young age is critical for their ultimate salvation. If you want your children and grandchildren to join you in New Jerusalem one day and avoid the lake of fire, the path of salvation needs to be walked with them in the age 4-14 window. Those who guide them along that path are making a huge difference in their eternal lives.
The Chinese Communist Party understands this dynamic. In China, children of any age are not allowed to attend church services. This appears to be how the Party hopes to eventually eliminate the worship of any god except the Party.
But here, we still have the right to teach our children and grandchildren about the Living God. And yet, because of our culture, we often do not teach, but we give our children the right to choose. In a day when almost everyone attended a Christian church, the right to choose meant a choice between Methodist, Baptist, or Catholic. All of these choices ended up with the child’s salvation and eternity with God, so a bit of choice was warranted. But today, giving the choice means a choice between church or no church, between Christianity and atheism, a choice between eternity spent with God – or eternity spent in a lake of fire.
The Apostle Peter, the big burly fisherman, was the first to recognize that the choices were not between several good ways to salvation, but between salvation and no salvation.
Jesus had continued to speak to His core twelve disciples, and a much larger group of tag-a-long disciples. He said, “The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your fathers ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
You can imagine his listeners turning to each other. “He wants us to eat His flesh and drink His blood? Yuck!” and another saying, “Do you think He’s lost it?” Still another deciding that this Jesus Way was beginning to look like some sort of grape Kool-aid cult.
And so, politely, some said, “This teaching is hard! Who can accept it?”
But, as usual, Jesus knew what the muttering meant.
“Does this offend you?” And you can just see them looking at their feet as He spoke up.
“Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” Referring once more to Himself, He asked them, if this bothers them, what they would do if they saw Jesus going up to Heaven?
And then He partially explains the meaning behind His words.
“The Spirit is the One who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all.” He’s saying that He’s talking about Spiritual flesh, Spiritual food, Spiritual blood, Spiritual Drink. It is a connection with the Holy Spirit of God that gives life. Without that connection, which usually comes to us during the baptism ceremony, we are dead people walking, like zombies going through an almost-life. But with that connection, with that Holy Spirit inside us, refreshed regularly with the spiritual flesh and blood of Christ, we come alive, learning to live a complete life, an eternal life, an abundant, joyful life.
Have you ever noticed that an infant or a toddler is not quite alive, living a life that is oh so limited to eating, drinking, puking, and maybe crawling? But suddenly, they begin to speak, they connect with the world around them, they become a person instead of a baby. They learn to walk, they take a-hold of anything they can get their hands around, they talk, they laugh, they ask questions. And pretty soon, you have a person who may be short in stature, but they are fully aware of the world around them. The difference between an infant and a four-year-old – that’s the difference between the walking dead to the spirit, and those that are animated by the Holy Spirit of God!
Jesus continues: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Have you noticed that most people speak words that are concerned with material things, and they like to speak words to others that hurt them, wound them, cut them, kill their spirits? The words most people speak lead us to the grave – think of your friends – how many of them are really good at lifting your spirit, at lifting you out of sadness, at giving you a love of life – and how many of them think the way to lift you up is murder another with words through gossip, pessimism, and sarcasm?
Can you move in the habit of speaking uplifting words? “I loved what you said today,” you can tell your friend. You will give others life! Or you can tear people down, murdering them with your words. “Why did you make THOSE comments today?” you tell your friend, and the knife goes in just a bit deeper.
This also happens to churches. When you are constantly telling your friends, neighbors, and family how good and joyful and uplifting your church is, the Spirit tugs at them and says “We ought to go, too!” But if you are constantly complaining about people in the church, pointing out that the church is smaller today than a couple years ago – never mind that almost everyone who has left has transferred directly to the church of Heaven – if you are always putting a wet blanket on the fire that the Spirit wants to kindle, that no one will want to be involved with your church. We must do as Jesus, speak words of spirit and life.
So why don’t we always want to speak uplifting words?
Jesus pointed out to his listeners. “But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe and the one who would betray Him.) He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
There are always some people who will choose not to believe, choose not to follow, choose not serve the Lord. They may come to church, they may even be baptized, but deep down, they don’t believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God, God the Son! Jesus and God know who these people are, even from the beginning. But they have still decided that the choice is ours to make. We get to decide whether to believe or not, to watch Jesus or to follow Jesus, to serve the One Living God or try to serve multiple gods. We decide, but Jesus and God have always know the decision we will make.
How can this be? Some people always want get into a debate about free will and determinism. Let me ask you – Even with your wisdom, did you know what flavor of ice cream your children would order even before you went to the ice cream shop? Did you still give them the choice? God is the same way with us. Knowing does not mean determining.
Many of the wider crowd of disciples left Jesus that day, for, just as Jesus had said earlier, they were following Him for earthly bread, not for eternal bread. They had followed Him to see if he was going to multiply the loaves again, like He had a couple of days earlier.
So, after the crowd began to leave, He turned to the core Twelve, who had always been personally chosen, whom Jesus had hand-picked, who were there every Sunday. And He asked them – “Are you going to go away, too?”
And Peter, the big burly fisherman whose mouth was always the first to speak, the man who had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God the day that Jesus asked them, “Who do you think I am?” Simon Peter, Simon the Rock, said, “Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!”
There is a point in every person’s life where a deep commitment has to be made to Christ. But I’m not talking about the day you “take Jesus into your heart.” I’m not talking about the day you announce that Jesus is the Son of God to a friend. I’m not talking about the day you’re baptized. All of those days are important, they are critical, they are eternally significant.
But... imagine that you are walking deep in the woods up in the mountains. You come across a cabin. Now you and I are from West Virginia – we know that some people who live in cabins deep in the woods up in the mountains don’t like strangers.
And so you come up to the front steps of the cabin, and the long-haired man comes to the door. He asks you a couple of questions, which you don't clearly understand, but then he invites you to come on up. There are a couple of steps to climb, a front porch to sit on. You can’t see inside the house whether it is a nice, comfortable place – or whether someone you can’t see standing in the dark has a weapon aimed at you.
Those days you declared your decision for Christ are the days you put your feet on the steps leading up to God’s front porch. Baptism is the day you sat down on that front porch. But there is a further step to be made.
It is the day you choose to walk into God’s living room. It is the day when you have decided that you are willing to trust Christ in His house. It is the day you have decided that this Jesus is trustworthy and will be the best friend you’ve ever had, the only one who will never betray you. It is the day when you decide that nothing in the world outside is worth what you will find in God’s house, sitting in that living room talking with Christ.
Oh yes, the world is still there. Somewhere is a great sale to buy things at, a football game to watch, an employer that will pay you a bit more, a pretty girl or a handsome guy to meet, another great tv show to watch, a vacation place to travel to. But in that living room is Jesus, and He has all the time in the world for you. Do you have the rest of your life to learn from Him? Would you bring your family into that living room to meet Him and learn from Him? Or is there something else outside that is calling you away?
You can decide to drop by occasionally – or you can decide that nothing in the world outside is worth what you will find sitting in that living room talking with Christ. You can decide to spend the rest of your life with Christ.
Peter made that decision that day when He said, “Lord, who will we go to?”
Peter had followed Jesus long enough he understood that there was no other option. He told Jesus: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!”
Yet, in our American culture, we still want to leave room for an auction. We keep looking for a “better deal”. We search for meaning in movies, find ourselves with financial funds and look for purpose in products. But Peter – not always the sharpest tool in the shed, had the answer that day. “Jesus, you have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God! Where else could we go?”
You and your children will not find eternal life in the gods of sports – although playing sports are good for the development of the body and character. You and your children will not find the words of eternal life in the gods of academics, although academics are good for the development of the mind and the ability to speak well. You and your children will not find God in video games nor in crafts, nor in fishing or hunting or in the chores of life – although each of these has some good to commend it to us.
But you and your children will find God by four, practical commitments:
First, you and your children must read and study the word of God, the Holy Bible - the more often the better. This is how we understand the character of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit.
Second, you and your children must practice daily two-way prayer – talking to God and listening to the response from the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit. This is how we find the will of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit for our lives.
Third, you and your children must spend time in small groups with other Christian friends, sharing God-sightings, praying for each other, debating the meaning of Scripture. This is how we gain deeper understandings of the love of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit.
And fourth, you and your children must join with others on the path of Holiness, the means of Grace where God speaks to us and feeds us and steps into our lives through baptism, through holy communion, through regular church attendance. This is how God, Christ, and Holy Spirit give us all good things.
There is a word which is commonly used about those who wish to follow Jesus. The word is “repentance” – the Greek word, metanoia, literally means to “rethink”, to change our way of thinking about the world, about God, about what is important in life. Repentance comes first – rethinking – before anything else.
If you will do these things – rethinking the priorities in your life and making a commitment to walk into God’s living room, up the steps to the front porch, even past the front porch, and into the living room, to sit in a deep cushioned chair in conversation with Christ, to trust Him completely with your life – not just a little bit, but completely – then you will begin very soon to experience the joy of eternal life, an eternal, abundant life that begins here, right here in this life, maybe even this morning and continues throughout the next ten thousand years and beyond.
For we who follow Jesus shall live forever!
Will you join us?
Services at Calvary United Methodist Church are Sundays at 9:30 am and 7:00 pm, with a deep Bible study Tuesdays at 7:00 pm. Our Children's Group meets at 5:30 pm on Sundays, with a Parent's Fellowship at that time. 390 S. 22nd St, Clarksburg, WV 26301 (in Adamston).
Services at Mt Clare United Methodist Church are Sundays at 11:00 am, with Bible study Wednesdays at 6:30 pm. The Church at the Chubb Run corner in Mt Clare, WV.
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