Potholes

Proverbs 1:32 For simpletons turn away from me—to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency. On the road from our apartment to the church where I serve there are some potholes that I avoid at all costs. As potholes do when they aren't repaired, these have gotten deep! If they weren't fixed the pothole would become a pit and the end result would be a car torn up when it ran over it. About two weeks ago the city probably had enough complaints to get a crew out there and fill one of those potholes up. I was pleasantly surprised when planning on avoiding that pothole to see a fresh patch of asphalt in it and I rode smoothly over it without having to dodge it. Problem solved. Of course, the other pothole is still gaping wide open and I remember it and avoid it every time I go down that road.

There is probably just about 100 yards distance between the pothole they fixed and the one they left. I have to wonder "Why not fix both?" Could it be laziness? Or blindness? Or procrastination? Or whatever? It seems foolish to not fix both potholes, because the one that is left is going to get worse, and even more disastrous. Sometimes disaster can be avoided if we will just move! You know! Take a step in the right direction.

I think we are in the middle of a growing pothole as Christians where we see certain things need to be done, but we are too complacent to even react. Sometimes people even find Biblical reasons to continue in their complacency. When someone wants to fix the potholes they are given every reason to not even care about them. "Just drive around them," they say. And they get deeper and deeper until they become a pit. We are in a "pit" right now because we have practiced avoidance about fixing these problems in our lives and we have become accustomed to avoiding them... almost automatically.

Maybe your desire to share your faith has taken a back seat to other things that consume your time and you have found a way to avoid the guilt of not sharing by just stepping around it with excuse after excuse. That pothole has become a pit for the modern-day church and mostly what we do now is trade members. This type of ministry brings in a whole new way of looking at the church and its purpose. It all comes back to the purpose of the church and our need to evangelize and not just sit on our hands and try to get other church members from other churches. The word for that is proselytizing.

We have been "commissioned" to go. Go in the power of the Holy Spirit and tell the world about Jesus and then disciple them to tell others about Jesus. Nothing has changed about this command except our complacency in doing it. Jesus illustrated us going out in the following scripture found in Matthew 22:1 Jesus also told them other parables. He said, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.

I have my own potholes that I avoid and it is time to fill them up and begin to repair the damage that has been done before my potholes become pits! May it be known that we shared our faith and saw many souls come to Jesus because of our activity in Kingdom Work. Washington -- Graffiti from the 1800s discovered by workers renovating the Washington Monument has quite a different tone from that usually found today on the sides of buildings and subway cars. "Whoever is the human instrument under God in the conversion of one soul, erects a monument to his own memory more lofty and enduing (sic) than this," reads the inscription which can now be viewed by visitors to the monument.

It is signed BFB. No one knows who that is, or who left the small drawings and 19th century dates on other walls. The markings in the lobby of the monument were covered over when it was decorated at the turn of the century. They were found when workers removed marble wainscoting as part of a year-long $500,000 renovation which was just completed.

Perhaps we have been decorating what our faith looks like by covering up the main thing as given by our Savior to His followers. May this generation be known as a generation that "woke up" to the fact that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Remember, John 3:5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. Time to get to work!! Souls are dying! We have the Words of Life and the way to make the way smooth and straight!

The Pilgrimage Continue...

David Warren