The Old Landmark

We all need to go back to the OLD LANDMARK, the cross of Calvary and remember where we would be if someone had not made the effort to plant a church where we worship today. Where would we be if there had been no one to reach out to us and tell us that Jesus Christ was the only way to be saved? Where would we be if there had been no one that cared enough to go out and invite people to church to keep the old landmark going and growing? Where would we be today if the church closed because it was no longer sustainable, unable to pay the apportionments or to do the ministries it is required to do by the charge of Christ and our book of discipline? We have to remember that Jesus told his disciples, which we are counted among, to go into the world and preach the Gospel, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

It takes all of us to carry out the ministries of the church and I am thankful that I serve a charge that has some willing to step up and take charge of the ministries of the church. We are doing good ministry here but there is more work to do if we want to see our churches grow and thrive. We have to reach to folks, call people on the phones to just say hi and invite them to come and worship with us, to help us grow our ministry and to become active participants in helping folks live into the kingdom of God. We all need to say as Samuel did when the Lord call him “Here I am Lord”.

If we do not reach out to missing, hurting, and lost people, what will we say in that day when we stand before our Savior and the question is asked “Why did you not tell them in about my free gift of salvation and new life” What stopped you from inviting that person or that other person to worship? Why did you not go to them and tell them you loved them and that I loved them too?” What will our answer be that day for God’s kingdom is already here among us and God is waiting for the harvesters?

When Israel was preparing to cross the flooded Jordan River and enter the land promised to them by God’s covenant with Abraham, Joshua commanded the priests to carry the ark before the people so they would know that God was in their midst. They unfortunately only saw God in the form of the ark. They did not understand that God is ever present all around us.

I think too many times our churches have become arks of God’s presence. They are the symbols of God to the world we live in and it seems like God is shut up in our churches because we don’t reach out and our churches are dying.

God is not just found in our beautiful houses of worship but God is out among the people in our communities and God is waiting for us to join Him in His work among them. God is in the highways, the byways, the alleys, the night clubs, the bars, the prisons, wherever hurting, lost people are, God is there at work and he desires that we work along side of Him building the kingdom. There is no building that can contain the presence of God and God’s own creation can not contain Him.