Weekend Review

Pastor Allan Nickell and The Madison New Testament Church offered a warm welcome as I arrived to begin the meeting this week. This was my first preaching visit to this church and I was blessed by the opportunity to share the Word of the Lord. The presence of the Lord was evident in the fellowship with fellow believers, the presence of the Lord was evident in the time of Worship, and the presence of the Lord was evident in the time of sharing the Word of God. You could sense the desire of the people to see God strengthen their relationship with Him. People responded to the invitation for prayer in both of the services and I believe that God has good plans for the remainder of the meeting. During the service last night God reminded me that there is a fine line between obedience and disobedience. The culture of our world is trying to influence us in the direction of what I call "selective obedience." Selective obedience leads us to believe that we can pick or choose what we will obey and we have the option to ignore other principles of the Word of God. We must be careful and remember that Jesus teaches us in Matthew that "wise" people hear the Word and they put into practice those principles that God reveals. "Foolish" people hear the same Word but they fail to put into practice those things that they have heard. I want to avoid the foolish approach to my spiritual journey; there are storms of adversity swirling in our nation at this very time. We need to have a solid foundation on which we are building our lives and building our spiritual future. This solid foundation is none other than Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages. Are you building on that foundation or is your life being built on the sinking sand of man's ideas and opinions? The old hymn declares, "On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand." The Spirit is challenging all of us to examine our lives and make sure that we are building on the Rock. We can resist the storms of deception as we build our life on Christ and the principles of His Word.