With a Subtitle: Ask God to let His love flow through you to someone outside your normal circle.
A brief Excerpt: The church family, like a team, must remain focused and avoid complacency to honor God and spread His kingdom. A newcomer felt unwelcome due to a lack of inclusion, highlighting the need to reach out to all, regardless of differences, and treat them as God’s children.
Scripture
Our verse for today comes from Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Background
Members of successful teams can routinely be heard to say how they need to keep improving, not get complacent, and remain focused if they want to keep winning. And year after year, these same coaches and athletes will say after a loss that they somehow lost focus, relaxed, or didn’t have the needed intensity that they had in earlier victories. And even though I shouldn’t be, each season I am amazed that talented, trained athletes will “not show up” for a game and lose one that they should have won. Likewise, our church family seeks to honor God, become more like Christ, and do His will to spread His kingdom and glory. But we are a collection of sinners, each residing at different spots along the path to Christlikeness. So we are bound to fail, whether it be in simple matters or in our highest goals. But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept or less disappointing when it happens. My wife has a friend that occasionally comes to our church. She is a single mom whose kids enjoy ours and generally enjoy our activities at church. But recently, she told us that she probably won’t be coming back. She said that she doesn’t feel very welcome. And when someone introduces himself to her for the first time like a stranger two weeks in a row, or people walk past her without looking at her, it’s easy to see how she might feel this way. And when she comes on Wednesday nights and doesn’t feel a part of the fellowship, maybe that’s a sign that we’re a little complacent or have lost our focus. Now, she happens to dress in her own unique style and probably would not profess to be a committed follower of Jesus. But she is a daughter of our Father. And although certain newcomers fit right in immediately, others don’t have people seeking them out and including them. We’re almost proud to add some to our clique, but too proud or embarrassed to include others.
Application
As our church reaches further into the communities around us, hopefully all types of people will come to our church. We know how to treat our own children, and those of our friends. But let’s consider how we are treating all of God’s children. God forbid they don’t feel welcome.
Charge
As we seek Him today, ask God to let His love flow through you to someone outside your normal circle. Reach out with the scarred hands of Jesus and say, “Welcome.”
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
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