English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Devotional Thought of the Day:
²⁸  Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹  Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT) 

228         The masses have been going off down “the road of a justified discontentment” and continue to do so. It hurts… but, how many we have caused to be disaffected among those who are spiritually or materially in need! Christ may once more be set among the poor and the humble: it is precisely with them that he is more at ease. (1)

The news this morning, and the talk I overheard at breakfast at the pastor’s conference I am at, is about the government shut-down.  People can’t go here and do this – the grand canyon is closed, this agency is closed – that agency is closed.  Some are rejoicing, some are voicing that “justified discontent” at our leaders and their inability to get things done.

Many are disaffected, discomforted, and even more will become more and more disillusioned.

But I wonder about the church – and if we’ve done the same thing.  That in order to maintain our entitlements – we’ve disaffected the very world which we are to be serving.  We don’t focus on relieving burdens, we don’t focus on bringing comfort, we don’t bring Christ’s healing to where there isn’t.

Not because we aren’t working.  Most pastors and most church people do, instead of too little, too much. We study and we gather and we strategize and we wonder why we aren’t effective.

It’s because we don’t take time in our relationships – seriously, we don’t take time to bring Christ to people – to bring them to Him.  It’s not because of a lack of desire – I think we have that.  It’s because we simply don’t spend enough time with Him ourselves.  Time in prayer, time in reading – not to study, but to read to understand His devotion to us… time to simply sit and adore Him.

For it is in those situations we allow Him finally, to take our burdens, our cares our anxieities, and dree us from them.  We learn to just walk with Him. absolutely absorbing His presence….

Then from there.. we walk with Him in ministering to the lost, the broken, the poor in Spirit.

Spend time with Jesus…. please….

For then, we will not have shut down the church, we will have opened it up…. and it will minister in His Name..

(1)  Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 1151-1155). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

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