Scripture

“The LORD your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!

~Deuteronomy 30:6, NLT

Quote

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

~Stephen Covey

My Thoughts

We all have a horror of old things or things becoming old. In our fear we make changes to counter this phobia: we start jogging, lifting weights, altering our eating habits but in truth none of these things will stop the aging process. Churches are a lot like people; some change with the times and some remain the same. I can show you church building that have not changed in 70 years and then there are those who are changing constantly. I personally prefer to be with the group that is changing but we have to be careful. Change is not a cure all. It may bring some temporary satisfaction but the new will wear off. There is excitement with novelty but we have to be careful not to lose our focus. Change in and of itself is not the answer. I am not saying that change is bad or that we don’t need to change; to the contrary, we desperately need to change but we must realize that Satan can use change to distract us. He will do anything he can to get our focus off of Jesus. He abhors the worship of Jesus. He does not want our focus to be on Christ.

I will give you an example: a few years back, we went through the “Worship Wars.” Many churches changed from traditional music and went to praise and worship. Organs became kindling and we brought in the guitars, drums, etc. In doing so, we lost our focus. We became so focused on change that we took our eyes off of Jesus who is the only object of our worship. I think we may have been guilty of worshipping worship. I’m sure Satan is pleased with any service in which Jesus is ignored. One young man brought me CD of a seeker service that he was really impressed with, he said, “Listen to this and tell me what you think.” I listened and Jesus was never mentioned during the entire service. When I pointed that out to him he said, “I’ll have to go back and listen to it again, I didn’t notice that.”

Satan will take any extreme so long as we do not focus on Jesus. He loves it when our worship becomes self-seeking instead of Christ-honoring. He despises those who love Jesus with all their heart. Fanaticism doesn’t bother the devil so long as our focus is on something other than Jesus. We need change but what we need to change is our hearts. We need to repent.

Extra

I can’t get the media to load today and I’ve already had one shut-down so I am posting this the way it is; if I can correct it, I will. A beautiful day yesterday {evening} for Mrs. Edith Long’s grave side service. I talked about answered prayer and the LORD answered a big one yesterday. I have to pastor’s wives still living and both are 95. Mrs. Lucille Inman lives north of Athens. Her husband Calvin C. Inman was my pastor for eight years. He licensed and ordiained me. He was my primary mentor. Bro. John Crawford baptized me in March of 1958 and his wife Elizabeth is still living. She has not been at home for two years and I could not find her but I bumped into her granddaughter Monday night at Pecks and she told me she was in rehab at Moulton. I went yesterday and had a sweet visit. She knew who I was and we talked about old times. Randy Lewis is on the same floor. Randy is easy to visit. I think everyone loves Randy.

Charity’s COLS is Friday at 11:00 which means June and I cannot attend but we will get to go to visitation.

Love the weather. It was 37 when I came to the office this morning but no wind at all, so it did not seem cold, just cool.

I hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.