Sunday, June 21, 1998 This Week’s Lesson:
In this week's lesson, which came from Romans 12:11 and Revelation 3:14-22, we learned about the importance of maintaining our enthusiasm for Christ's service. Busy schedules can sometimes cause spiritual concerns in our life to get less attention than they need and deserve. We can love the Lord yet still become lax in our Christian service. We can go through the motions of living right before others but still fail to exercise the needed discipline to use our spiritual gifts as we should. The Quarterly pointed out that spiritual enthusiasm and Christian service are interconnected. We should strive to keep mood swings from affecting our devotion to His work. We should remind ourselves that our spiritual gifts are used collectively by the Lord to do His work on earth. Those of us who name Christ as Savior and Lord are a part of that work, and we should focus our hearts on the tasks before us. The Apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 12:11, that we should never allow ourselves to become lax.
In Revelation 3:14-22, Jesus, described in this passage as the Ruler of God's creation, the words of the Amen, and the faithful and true Witness, is rebuking the church at Laodicea. They, like many of us, had become very affluent and were lifting themselves up in their own eyes because of that affluence. Jesus chastened them, however, for being neither hot nor cold. He called them lukewarm and said that He would spew them out of His mouth. The people at that church had been caught up on their own accomplishments rather than on doing what the Lord wanted them to do. If you have received Jesus as Savior and Lord, then the Holy Spirit has given you spiritual gifts which are to be used in His service. Failure to be faithful to our spiritual calling robs us of the joy of serving our Lord. More importantly, it might rob someone else of ever having and knowing what we have and know in Christ. The Laodiceans saw themselves as well off, but Jesus told them that they were wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.
When we have allowed ourselves to become apathetic toward our Christian service, we need to turn to our Lord with a repentent heart. God offers forgiveness freely to all who will come to Him. Rather than pursuing the gold of this earth which perishes, we should seek the gold which has been refined in God's heavenly fire. We should seek the true Christian wealth which comes as a result of our devotion and faithfulness to Him because those riches have eternal worth and will never perish. A good way to sum up the thought of this lesson is that we should strive to live equally well on both sides of the grave. Revelation 2:7 says, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."
Tom of Spotswood"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (I John 5:12)
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)
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