Reminiscing and Reminders.  By Laura Carson.

Most of us love our church and our church family and our Pastor. That is as it should be. I am truly blessed to have a Pastor that dearly loves the scriptures and is passionate in his sharing of it.  I take notes every Sunday and study the notes and scriptures throughout the week.

On a recent Sunday we had a visiting Pastor and his wife come and share with us. He had pastored our church previously for six years in the 1970s. (I did not live here then). They also led our praise and worship that Sunday…  Bluegrass music, complete with a banjo and a tambourine. It was a wonderful start to our morning! It was all very reminiscent of some church services I had attended in the 1960s. It was rather nostalgic for me, as I came to know the Lord in 1966. Such a sweet time of older praise songs!

This Pastor spoke loudly and strongly from his King James Version bible. We never know when God will really work through a sermon, or a situation to work in our hearts.

Some of us seem to have a rather cavalier attitude towards church and just blithely attend and do church by rote. This Pastor was admonishing us that he felt there was a definite lack of seriousness in many who fill church pews each week.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13

 “And now Israel, what does the Lord require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?” NKJV

This is not optional. Respect is missing in many churches these days. And a lack of commitment also seems prevalent in some folks’ walk with the Lord.

In Deuteronomy 6:5

 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” 

These are not words to be taken lightly. We need to respect the Lord!

A clear conscience is also needed.

Hebrews 9:14

 “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

And again in  Deuteronomy 6:18

 “And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may be well with you, …” 

Not all of these scriptures were shared by the visiting Pastor, but this is where my studies took me this week.

In Ephesians Chapter 6:6-7

 “not with eyeservice as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.” 

And in my mind, I was still ruminating over our Bible Study from the previous Wednesday. I was combining the scriptures from that study with what stuck with me from Sunday.  We had discussed the fruit of the Spirit as written about in Galatians 5:22-23

 “But the fruit of the Spirit  is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” 

God knows each of us intimately! He knows that I still struggle with self-control.

I pray a lot when I am driving.  I was praying over everything that I shared here with you, asking for the Holy Spirit’s help in weaving all of it more deeply into my daily life.

Then a car with personalized plates pulled in front of me…

 DY2SELF