Thought For Today - January 25 - Why Are Fleeting Impressions Made By The Message ?

Thought For Today - January 25
WHY ARE FLEETING IMPRESSIONS MADE BY THE MESSAGE? 
By: Robert A. Searles

Week after week we sit in our pews in church and hear the word of God being expounded. We all appear to be pious listeners to the word of God. Our eyes and our ears are studiously affixed upon the preacher as he preaches his heart out to his beloved flock. It seems as if after all the teaching and preaching that we have been exposed to throughout all the years that we have sat and listened, we ought to be making a difference in changing our society and our environment for the better.


While we listen, we hear, but we don’t really hear. We are admonished to act upon that which we have heard, but we do not act. We somehow assume an attitude of complacency, willing to let someone else do that which we ourselves ought to be doing. When the preacher pronounces his final amen and dismisses his congregation, we all arise, sometimes shake the preacher’s hand, and go back to our old ways, doing our own things, and the message, if we ever grasped it at all, has fled from us.

This was also true in the days of Ezekiel. God, speaking through him warned his people, saying: “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they all sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. Ezekiel 33:31.

Why are we so soon to forget the message that God has laid upon the preacher’s heart to deliver to us? Is it because we take our bodies to church, but leave our minds behind in some other place. Is it because we want to appear to be correct in our culture and appearances, and somehow feel that going to church is the right thing to do especially on Sunday morning if it happens to be Easter or Christmas? Are we among those with cold stony hearts, filled with guilt, hard feelings, and resentments, having a stony heart so that the word of God cannot penetrate, and take root and bear fruit.?

I have observed in my years of church going that before the message and after, in the church sanctuary, there is little that reminds one of the sovereignty and holiness of God. Children are allowed to race and run through the building. Old and young alike are gathered in their own clicks or groups discussing football, or other sports, or describing their daily occupations and careers; women exchanging gossip with little mention of spiritual or godly things. Much of the time our hearts are not fertilized with soil that will receive the word of God and act upon it. 

 Jesus gave an explanation as to why the word of God does not have a more lasting effect in the lives of its’ hearers when he taught his disciples that the seed of the word was falling into shallow, unprepared stony hearts. 

 “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for awhile: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” Matthew 13: 21.

Most of us hear what we want to hear, and do what we want to do, much of the time disregarding what God wants for us. We are so overwhelmed with our own trials, tribulations, and problems that we do not remember how in times past God has blessed us and brought us through. We are hearers with short memory.

 “For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgeteth what manner of man he was.” James 1:24

. Previous miracles are soon forgotten. “Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, twelve.” Mark 8:19

When we sit week after week in the church pews, we are like those whom Jesus described: those who cannot or will not grasp and deal with truth. “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,.” 2 Timothy 3:7.

 If we could learn to truly worship God in spirit and in truth, and regard his word as the most important thing that we have to deal with each and every day, perhaps we would become more attentive listeners, and having received the word of God with fear and trembling, go out into our society and truly make a difference. True Christians ought to be heard and not just seen. True Christians ought to be more active in government and influence the elimination of corruption in high places.

God sends his preachers and teachers to warn the people and to encourage them to action for good, as well as to point them to the way of their own individual salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Fellow Christians, we need to take more serious heed to the preaching of the word of God. When we come into the house of worship on Sunday and at other times as well, lets approach it with a sense of awe and refinement, and worship. Lets teach our children to respect the place of worship as coming into the very presence of God. There are other places and times where and when we can gather with our friends and neighbors to discuss our jobs, and sports, and carnal things. Lets keep the house of God a place of prayer and learning. Then let us go out into the world with answered prayer and knowledge and make a difference.


Telehelp Publicdations Christian Literature Ministry 


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