Blog: Max Dawson
December 22, 2016
Would you be content to be like the person mentioned in ? This person is a nameless and faceless church member in Rome. Well, not really nameless, because this person is mentioned by name in the verse noted. But, I would venture a guess that you do not know that Christian’s name. And, certainly that person is faceless to us (the Bible is not a picture book; so, we don’t know what that person looked like). And, frankly, I don’t even know if that beloved person is a man or woman. You can read and decide for yourself (and, of course learn the name of the person about whom I write).
But, indeed that person, to Paul, was “my beloved in the Lord.” That Christian was loved by the great apostle and loved by the Lord. Yet, for all we know, that person (whom I have chosen not to name) was just part of the crowd of faithful Christians who made up the church at Rome.
Would you be content to be like that person? Really? Just be part of the crowd?
Or, are you looking for something more? Something more about you? Something special, dramatic? Are you looking for the church to be more thrilling, spectacular, more fun? Are you looking for things to be more focused on you?
Maybe it is the quest to be “something more” that has contributed to the continuing decline in church attendance and church membership in America. That decline has impacted all kinds of churches, even in our own fellowship.
A lot of folks are tired of church. They are tired of just coming together in humble worship and devotion to God. They are tired of gathering at the same worship place, at the same times, on the same days of the week. Bored with seeing the same faces, hearing the same preachers and the same doctrines. Is that you?
Yet, in that sameness–and what some people call boring–God is at work. Through the church with whom that nameless, faceless Christian worships, God is building up people who are fit for heaven, building up His kingdom.
It’s not about being a rock star with everyone looking up to you and idolizing you. It is not about you standing out from the crowd with special accolades.
The person noted in may have just been an ordinary church member, with no really remarkable achievements in life. Ordinary. Just part of the crowd. Maybe sometimes lost in the crowd. But faithful. Beloved. Part of the community of believers–the local church. Preparing for heaven.
THE FINAL WORD
Daily discipleship and church membership is not going to be a spectacular series of amazing events every day. Rather, it is the day-by-day denial of self and following Jesus that is so valuable to the kingdom. It is what Jesus spoke of in .
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
The Lord’s church doesn’t need revolutionaries with radical ideas. Instead, it needs Christians who love God and who love God’s children (the folks who make up the church). It needs Christians like the one in . Maybe that Christian was not noted for anything special or spectacular–but was just faithful to God.
Blessings to you, my faithful (and sometimes faceless) friends,
Max