Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. –Acts 20:28
I truthfully don’t believe that those who lay out of church read my blog, and I’m totally not offended. I’m quite certain that they likely don’t spend much time with other Christian writers either, they’re just not into it. So I have to ask myself a few questions this morning:
Why they are not in church?
Why they are not convicted about not being in church?
How do we reach out to them?
Acts 20:28 breaks it down quite nicely for me.
Take heed therefore unto yourselves
If I’m spending my Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday night performing a role call in my head, I’ve missed the point of attending church. That’s what I needed to hear! Because I do. I don’t do it in condemnation (okay that might be a lie)… I don’t want to do it in condemnation, I am honestly concerned for their spiritual wellbeing and I miss them. But then the flesh kicks in occasionally and I get all pious and holy and miss the whole point of me being in church which is to improve my relationship with Christ and give me the tools to make it through the week; because it’s work to make it in this world. So my first responsibility is to make sure I’m covered spiritually and if I truly did that there would be no condemnation of those who didn’t make it. But then I’m to
Take heed to all the flock
Once I’ve gotten what God needed me to get I need to turn my attention to the flock. I do that by listening to the Holy Spirit. I cannot oversee the entire lot of the missing masses of church members; which is my issue. I see the number missing and don’t know where to start! What I need to do is pray and seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance on who I can encourage this week. One or two will do! Imagine if each leader in the church took one or two, how much quicker we would cover the entire missing mass and in so doing we would serve the way God intended us to, which is a unified body of believers concerned for the welfare of one another. So simple, yet so seldom done.
Feed the church of God
We’re a malnourished generation. We spend so much time doing and so little time digesting the Word of God and applying it to our lives. If we ate literal food the way we feed on the Word of God we’d have been in the grave long ago. That goes a long way to explain why the church is so dead. So how do we feed those who refuse to come to the table? One spoonful at a time every chance we get.
Social media is an awesome tool to post scripture, but it’s by far not the only way. I cannot count the times I’ve been encouraged by a card, note, phone message or email that had a scripture included. Every time we correspond with friends and family a scripture should be noted. Our words of encouragement are awesome, but God’s are powerful!
Luke’s final thought was God’s final words on the cross. It is finished. His blood bought the church and it is His blood that cleanses each one of us from all unrighteousness. Spread the Word!!!
