"Living In The Light"

Sept 10 2017 Matthew 18: 10-17

Attending church regularly is not only good for your soul folks, it's

also a good time to take a rest.  A Sunday school teach taking her class back into the sanctuary said to her students, now children we must be quiet in church, “Yes I know teacher” said one of the students, “some people are sleeping.”

According to Time magazine, attending church regularly is not only good for your soul, it's also good for you mind, it can, if you allow it, get your mind out of the everyday world  for a moment and it is also good  for your health, both physical and spiritual.   In a recent cover story about changing attitudes to health, the magazine cited several scientific studies which indicate people who practice a faith are markedly healthier than those who do not.  Their blood pressure was lower, they have fewer heart problems, they're less prone to depression - they even recover faster and more completely from hip fractures the survey said, now isn’t that amazing.   “BUT” the story didn’t say which group was surveyed, the group that stayed awake for the hour or those who were resting in their sleep.  Now seriously folks, I can personally attest to this, as it has made a big difference in at least the last 40 years my life. 

At about the age of 16 I left the church for over 20 years and during that time I had major bouts of deep depression, loneliness, anger, and jealousy. I even had thoughts of taking my own life all because I felt unloved and my lust for things, materialism.  I often felt unloved even though there were people around me who told me they loved me, I just didn’t believe them.  How could I believe them when they would occasionally label me stupid, foolish, or a good for nothing?  I even had school teachers tell me that I would make university because I didn’t read well enough and because I struggled with math.  Little did they know then about dyslexia which I struggled with as a child and later and adult?  Are you aware of the condition, the reversing of letters and numbers when reading or writing?  Some of you have probably experienced my disability in my blog writings as I don't have and editor, or when I announce the next hymn for the morning.  
But as an altar boy with Anglican Church where I was first nurtured, seeds of faith were being planted.   There I felt important, accepted and cared for.   I didn’t know it then but somehow Gods extravagant mercy grace and forgiveness was always being extended to me in the background.   Maybe some of you had that experience too. Today, I account God’s unconditional love, His extravagant grace, mercy and forgiveness as saving me from the hands of Satan and death many times.  “Oh Lord Save Me Tonight”

You know I see his mighty saving hand at work in my life even unto today.  Believe me folks, I was no saint growing up, but I have known persons who though they were so clean that they would squeak if you touched them.  I think the bible calls them, "the self-righteous,"  You probably know someone like that?   I never understood why I was I so comfortable around them until a friend pointed out that it was because I saw a reflection of myself in them.   But, for some reason or other I was always attracted to those who had a disability, the addicted, the lonely the lost and the forgotten.  I didn’t understand or realize it at the time, but it was there, that I found Jesus.  He was always standing somewhere in their midst.  Often just in the background in the form of kindness, compassion, humility, joy, and laughter, even when the circumstances were not good.  It was being shown to me through the works of Gods angles, who turn out to be ordinary people like you and me.   It was there that my life began to take a turn for the better.  It was there that I personally found out that I was being saved from myself, saved from my ego, my arrogance and my self-righteousness.  You see we are all plagued with some form of these things folks.  That is what Jesus is asking us to surrender our will and way for His way.  For me, there was no longer the argument of who would be favored in the eyes of God, I began to see clearly that we are all Gods offspring, Children of the light.  Matthew 18: 2-5.  For me, no one was bad enough to truly understand what they were doing or had done.  In Luke 23: 34 we hear Jesus utter these words: "Father, forgive them. for they know not what they do."  Jesus didn’t qualify that statement, He meant it for everyone, including the ones who were killing Him.   Now isn't that amazing!!  For me Love took on a new meaning because there was nothing I have done or had not done that could keep that love from me.  I like Peter learned to run with open arms to the Lord of love regardless of my sins, guilt or shame.  You can read about Peters love for the Lord in John 21: 15-19.   You see you cannot protect yourself from life’s circumstances.  You cannot demand that people love you.  True love can only be given and it must be without any strings attacked.  You cannot avoid the darkness that life often brings, but with God all things are possible in your life, Mark 10: 27.  With God you will be able to tolerate life’s ups and downs, life's pain and sorrow and still know that you are precious and loved in Gods sight.  Heavenly joy is found by letting go of things, while worldly pleasure and happiness demands clinging to things.   Folks, do not allow your human nature {flesh} to control the outcome of your life, Galatians 5: 17.  Our human nature or the flesh as Paul describes it is there to teach us to recognize that there is good and bad in everything.  It was not meant to control us, but we were given a nature, to control it.   Paul tells us to allow your spiritual nature to take control.  For it is the nature that leads you to an eternal life.  Both the flesh and the spirit require feeding, the one that gets fed the most becomes the strongest in you and it will dominate your life.  Should it not be the spiritual one then?   

This truly is what living in the light is all about.  The darkness will never completely go away but the spirit is stronger than the flesh and in time, with the help of our Lord, you can overcome any circumstances and the darkness will not win.       
                                               "Spirit Song"