It became evident last week that a number of people in our church family tested positive for covid or were just not feeling well. We limited our gathering. God can use situations like this to motive us to consider how to stimulate one another to further faithfulness while being flexible without allowing roadblocks to inhibit our service.
Christian faithfulness to the Lord is needed to avoid compromise. Unfaithfulness starts small, with one compromise leading to another, leading to another. The only way to become more faithful is to practice faithfulness, to cultivate faithfulness, to feed on faithfulness. Faithfulness is needed in an increasingly declining culture. It is needed as we encounter unforeseen complexities.
Flexibility is a good thing to practice. What will you do with your extra time or changing schedule? It is way to easy to spend way too much time scrolling social media or the news feeds in order to get the very latest information or entertainment. It would be easy to binge watch Disney+ and Netflix. What is easy, however, is often not what is best for us spiritually.
Here are a few suggestions toward faithfulness and flexibility.
Spend time with God in His Word – Not rushed time that does not pay attention to the author’s intent. Plunge into the Word of God, the heart of God.
Pray through our church directory – Pray for a few families or individuals each day. Pray for their spiritual growth and for faithful service.
Pray for all of NBC missionaries – Lift up each one of these schools by name and plead with the Lord to use them for His glory.
Play with your kids – Engage with your kids and build trust. Don’t settle for simply quality time or quantity time. Now is the time to engage them. Listen to your kids and tell them the Gospel story again – Ask them good questions that will draw out their hearts, really listen to what they are saying, and then bring Christ into the conversation and apply it to their situation.
Employ the different forms of communication at your disposal to encourage others in our church family. Engage them face-to-face. Use the telephone. Make us or FaceTime, or Skype to pursue spiritually-encouraging ministry with your closest friends at church, but also those saints that you are less familiar with.
Plan to gather this Sunday with your family for worship with your family.
There are many more ways to engage. Set a more God-honoring tone for the rest of our lives. Faithfulness to Christ lived out through flexibility furthers our devotion to Christ.
-Pastor Seboe