Welcome Home!

For the past few weeks I have been meditating on the parable of the Prodigal Son. For those that are unfamiliar with the story, it's about a son who asks his father for his inheritance now - then moves to a city, squanders the money away, ends up working on a pig farm and starving.... then after all of that decides that it's best to go home and work as a servant for his Dad because the servants at his own home are treated better than he's currently being treated.

If this were to be told today, the story would be about a person who moved out on their own, got a really good job, was living a comfortable life and decided that church or the fellowship of believers weren't important to their spiritual well being because they're "comfortable."

Instead of feeding pigs, they might be involved with drinking too much, sexual immorality,  or any other number of things that we do that we are ashamed to talk about with those that are closest to us.

The fascinating part of the story to me is that the son recognizes that his Dad will always take him back. That is the nature of God. The thing that I wrestled with is - why does it take us so long to see this?

Regardless of where we are or what we have done, God is waiting with open arms for us to repent!

Take action today and ask yourself how far you are from home, and whether or not you need to return to a pure relationship with God. He's waiting!

Spiritual or Spare Ritual?

Every Sunday, millions of Christians leave the comfort of their home to gather with other believers to worship. The fact that we can do this freely in the Western world is nothing to be taken lightly especially since there are many places in the rest of the world where the church is still persecuted.

The challenge is to prevent this from becoming a meaningless ritual that we perform that we either take for granted or treat casually.

When Jesus met the woman at the well they had a conversation... it appears as though she views worship as the "ritual" - the when and the where.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. John 4:20

Jesus' reply gets to the heart of the matter:

 But the hour is coming, and is here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship hum. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:23-24 

In no way am I implying that you should not go to church. On the contrary... Christianity in Action is realizing that we are the church, and it's not about a ritual, or a time or a place. We should always be worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

Let's spend some time this week meditating on our relationship with God and allow Him to show us whether we have gotten complacent and our relationship has been reduced to a check box, or whether we are truly worshiping God as we should in all aspects of our life.