From the Preacher’s Pen… School is back in session and August is nearly over. In one way it seems like everything is beginning and in another it reminds us that an ending is coming. Life is just like that in countless ways!
This morning we gather to worship our Lord and Savior. We do so remembering the end of His earthly, physical life. Yet we do it on the day of celebration of His resurrection and beginning anew.
When we see both beginnings and endings happening together it also reminds us that our perspective may well cause us to miss appreciating what is most important! Let’s consider that thought for a moment as we prepare to worship:
Losing the Most Important Thing
On Monday, August 14, 2006, NASA reported to the Associated Press that it had lost the original recording of the first moon landing including Neil Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” statement. Neil Armstrong’s footprint that he left on the moon and his speech were among the 20th century’s defining moments.
His famous spacewalk was seen by millions on July 20, 1969, and yet now the original recording is lost and maybe gone forever. One might ask, “How could you lose something so important?”
The fact is, in life we lose things and unfortunately many times we lose things far more important than some famous recording!
Jesus taught several lessons emphasizing this very point. In Luke 12:15-21 he talked about the man that imagined it was time to sit back and enjoy his riches. Yet the man failed to realize that his life would end that night. Clearly, he failed to recognize what was most important in his life. In Luke 16:19-30 a man fails to see the importance of obeying God’s will until it is eternally too late for him.
None of us are immune physically or spiritually. We may lose ourselves by making a mistake or giving in to sin. When we do so, an important part of our spiritual identity is lost.
We may be enticed to forget following Jesus and His will and lose our way down that “broad path.”
We may get caught up in the moment and lose sight of those things that are the most important to us.
The truth is that each and every one of us gets lost from time to time. We lose our identity, our way to life, our godly perspective.
Jesus knows that it is easy for us to lose our way. That’s the very reason he came! He came to help us find our way back to Him! Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
Indeed, our coming together to worship God is both a reminder of our need and of His help. Now is the time to be found. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time of refreshing. Now is the time to remember so that we may never eternally lose what is most important.
Right here, right now is the time to determine and dedicate yourself to remembering. And in so doing may we truly worship our God and Savior this morning.
— Lester P. Bagley