WARNING! Reading this article may be harmful to your way of living! Thanksgiving is hastily on its way. If you celebrate Thanksgiving like so many people, it will be spent eating vast amounts of food, visiting with our friends and loved ones and perhaps watching parades, floats and football. During this time, we get together; we talk about how thankful we are, grateful for what the Lord is doing and we leave feeling good and encouraged about what we have. We may even think about how there are people who are not as well off as we are, who will not spend thanksgiving like us. We may even be moved to a sort of sympathy for their situation. We will go to bed that evening, stuffed like the turkey we just ate.
As I reflected upon this holiday celebration, I began to think; “Is this any different than how most Christians live their everyday lives”. Think about it. We get together at church; we spend time with people we already know and love. We tell each other how grateful and thankful we are. This may be the one time during the week we actually express thanks. We fellowship and enjoy the programs and ministries that give us joy as we sit with one another. And then we eat. We eat up the sermon, the prayer time, the Sunday school lesson, the evening worship, the bible study and the cranberry sauce called worship. We walk out the church doors, stuffed. We perhaps go to bed that evening stuffed. We may have been moved to sympathy for those who do not know Christ personally, but that is about it. We don’t do anything about it! How many of us (me included) drive by, walk by, work with, talk with, interact with people who do not know Jesus Christ personally? We make excuses about time, priorities or agendas and it becomes the last thing on our thoughts.
I don’t want you or the church to start some type of Evangelism Program, or an outreach night, because most likely it will be a flash in the pan when we get bored with it. No, what we need to have happen is a change in our way of living. I heard a person say that Thanksgiving is the one day, soup kitchens do not need help, it is the other days of the year that feeding those in need goes unnoticed. We don’t need people to be moved to a one time outreach effort, we need a change in lifestyle.
In regards to the Gospel: Yes, we need to eat, but we also need to share the food with those who never ate. Share the Gospel with your life, let us ALL stop being Gluttonous Christians!