At camp, this is a season of
program planning, potluck lunches, community Christmas dinners and deadlines
before Christmas break! Reminds me of finals week, but I’m less jacked up on
Mountain Dew, didn’t sleep in a library last night, didn’t lose a 1to10 and
have to wear a wolf skin vest to all my tests and there’s no free pancakes (but
Jenny Loyd does send some amazing cookies to us on Fridays)! I’m done with the college life, but I still
get that feeling of anticipation thinking about the end of the semester!
The sermon
this Sunday at my church was about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.
The pastor helped us to understand a lot of truth in the passage and I’m still
processing through them all this week. There were two points that stuck with me
and are challenging and encouraging to me during this scramble stress time
before Christmas. You might have read the story before and if you were like me,
you might have been confused and spent little time trying to figure out what it
says about God and us. The rich man lives in absolute luxury, daily stepping
over Lazarus, a poor man covered with sores who begs outside this man’s gate,
to go about his day in the town. They both die, Lazarus is “carried by the
angels to Abraham’s side” and the rich man is buried and “in Hades, being in
torment.” The rich man calls out to Abraham and exclaims his anguish. Abraham
explains the situation to him, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you
received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is
comforted here and you are in agony.” This hit me hard, the rich man used the
gifts from God, money, house, health, relationships to get his “good things”
during his life on earth and now he is in Hades. Faith through grace results in
salvation, but obviously God also cares about our works and the way we use what
He has given us. As followers of Christ, Christmas is an incredible celebration
of grace and thanksgiving because God came in the flesh to be love! This
Christmas I want to remember the gospel, give thanks to God and repent of
materialism. All I “have” is God’s and He blesses us so we can be a blessing. My
and your “good things” and good life is not here on earth, it’s in eternity
with Jesus; therefore, let’s use the blessings for His glory rather than being
enslaved by self-service and greed. This challenge came from God to me out of
love, He desires to bring my sin into the Light so I can be like Him; I send it
also to you out of love.
So I’ll leave you with two questions that have been
sanctifying to me:
1. Do you use the blessings from
God to live your good life here or do you recognize
all is God’s and use everything for eternal purposes and for the spreading of the gospel?
2. Who is at your gate? Just as
Lazarus begged at the rich man’s gate, who is God
asking you to serve, give to and love? Don’t have a gate or know any poor people? Find them. Jesus came to us, let’s
step out of our houses and into our towns.
Lauren
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