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The Cornerstone
This is the Stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the Chief Conerstone." Acts 4:11
Pulbished to Support the Work of the West End Church of Christ, Richmond, Virginia
Volume 8 * Number 16* April 20, 2008
Gospel Meeting Week
Yes, a gospel meeting week can wear you out, but when you stop and think about it; is there a better work we can do to tire us? Jesus says “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Prior to the meeting, we may have all kinds of apprehension about making each and every service. We know we will have to hustle, bustle and prepare to attend each night, and we wonder how are we going to make it. But, I have stood at the back of the building for a long time now as people are exiting on Friday night, and the overall consensus is “it sure has been a great week” We have been filled! The word of God does this to us.
The preaching of the word will challenge us. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and shaper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
Each night we will have our hearts pricked, our knowledge increased, our understanding sharpened, our resolve reinforced, our hopes lifted, our spiritual body strengthen, and we end being spiritually full. The word of God does this for us.
Understanding the profit of the word, make every effort to attend each and every night this week. Eat early or eat later than usual. Fill up the car ahead of time, iron the shirts sooner than later, get up earlier or stay up later. You will need to make any number of sacrifices throughout the week, but sacrifice that counts does not come without costs to us.
Many ask, “what can I do?” The greatest thing one can do is to come and be filled by the Word of God. Paul told Timothy “Till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” II Timothy 4:13 We will sit not only at the feet of our guest preacher, but at the feet of our Lord, who taught Peter, Paul, Matthew, Luke, John, etc. We will feast upon righteous words that will lead us to our heavenly home.
What a great week we have before us all. Lord Willing, see each of you every night during our gospel meeting week.
Stacy Crim T
Love the Difficult
Dan Petty
"Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love" (2 Peter 1:5-7).
One of the greatest heresies of all is the notion that life is supposed to be easy. Our society has made us believe the path of least resistance is best. We think the most important pursuit in life is the pursuit of happiness. We ought to have learned by now that the only way to get happiness is to forget it, and that the most unhappy people in the world are the people who are trying the hardest to be happy.
We do ourselves and our young people a disservice by failing to tell them that life is difficult. Young people will choose a curriculum in school primarily because it is easy, but will repeatedly avoid the difficult. Many of us choose our careers for the same reason. Such an approach is softening to society and weakening to one's character.
Spiritual growth, more than any other pursuit, is hindered by the notion that it comes easily. The apostle Peter's text uses two words that tell us that real growth requires great effort. The first is "diligence," from spoudé, which denotes earnestness, zeal, or sometimes haste. The second is the verb "supply," from epichoregéo, to supply fully or equip. The latter term was derived from the idea of a chorus leader in ancient Greece, who also took on the responsibility of collecting, maintaining, training, and equipping such choruses. Peter uses these two terms to say we must bend all our energies to equip ourselves with great qualities. We must not be content with anything less than the highest virtues we can add to our characters.
D. Elton Trueblood once illustrated the worthlessness of the undisciplined life. "A human life that goes in the path of least resistance will give no more usable power than will the stream that flows all over the bottom land. The only way to make a stream produce power is to put it between sharp high banks, run it through a man-made gorge where it is controlled, and, because it is controlled, the implicit power is available." Peter teaches further along in his text that our lives can be fruitful and productive when discipline is applied (v. 8). The course of ease and lack of effort will not only result in a lack of any real growth, but leads to blindness and short-sightedness (v. 9). Those with a real vision in life are those who know the value of discipline and hard work.
How do we learn such discipline? Perhaps the greatest motivation comes from observing it in someone else. A good teacher is one who instills discipline in his students through a demonstration of it in his own life. And in the pursuit of godliness and virtue, Christians can look to the perfect demonstration and example in the life of Christ. In Peter's text, the challenge to add the virtues is given in the context of "the true knowledge of Jesus Christ" and His magnificent promises (vs. 3-4).
Years ago it was considered an impossibility for human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. People were told it would never be done. Then it was done. And in the next few years after that, many people began to do it. Why the sudden change? The only way to account for it is expectancy. The rest of the world came to realize that it could be done. Jesus is not only our example, He has shown us what we can be.
What a tragedy for a person to be less than he might be! What a shame it is for us to waste our opportunities to become what God wants in us. We were made in His image. Peter says we have the potential to become "partakers of the divine nature" (v. 4). But the road to greatness is long and difficult.
A poet once said, "The one thing that I most want to say to the young is, 'Learn to love the difficult.'" Life will not necessarily be easy. Being a Christian will not be without its difficulties. But then nothing of importance is easy.
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