Good Saturday morning! One of the complaints the secular world has against ministers is the load of guilt they sometimes preach. In thinking about this today, it occurred to me that ministers have a tough job. Reminding us of sin and the guilt that we have from original sin is not an easy thing to do. While we would like to have our ministers be cuddly and soft, they have a duty to remind us of backsliding, sinful thoughts, evangelizing, and leading us to the cross. As you will see in Pastor Rogers' devotional this morning, reminders to watch our condition, or to be on guard as the Bible tells us, are not always comfortable, easygoing words. If we have become lukewarm in our love toward Jesus, a few words about backsliding will prick our consciences. All of us are to be the salt of the world, and salt hurts when rubbed on a sore, just as it also cleanses. Feeling a little pricked because your minister didn't have soft, cuddly words for you? Well praise God for that! There are times to be soft and times to remind each of us that God is at hand. Not only is God at hand as the loving, caring Abba, but also as the strict Father who wants the best for each of us. As we all know from growing up, what is best for us is not always in line with what we want to do. Just as a loving parent might violently snatch a child back from the path of a speeding bus, so our heavenly Father might send a few stern words to our minister to bring us back to the light.
Your minister may phrase it more gently than I have, that is good too. Don't be thinking a gentle man or woman is weak. In Philippians we are reminded, "let your gentleness be known to all men, the Lord is at hand." A gentle touch or gentle words should never be taken for weakness. Only in a hardened heart will gentle words find no place to enter in. Did you think that Jesus spoke only in general when He told the parable of the soils? Each of us struggles with hard and fertile parts of our hearts, and these will change over time and with the work of the Holy Spirit. However, do not be without hope. When the time is right and the work of the Holy Spirit is completed in our hearts, there will be no hardened spots left when Jesus welcomes us home.
God loves you and so do I,
Bucky
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