February 2025 Pastoral Letter
Good Morning,
God’s grace is never more apparent than when we look at our own walks with Christ and see the many different ways that we fall short from the standard He has called us to. The law of God is not bendable or able to be executive ordered away. It is perfect and must be obeyed. When we read the law in the Bible, or maybe better said, when the law reads us, it has one of two effects. Either it convicts us and we then try to smother it with a pillow so we do not have to listen to its cries, or we are so moved by its perfect testimony that we cry out to Jesus for His forgiveness for our breaking of it.
We can tell a lot about our calling and our election by which way the soul reacts. One of the ways of course that we cannot see either reaction take place is to just not read the Scriptures at all. An excuse I hear every now and then as to why men, especially, do not take the time to commune the Lord in His word is that it’s boring and/or doesn’t have anything to say to me. Here again is a problem not of will, but of heart. If you love Jesus as much as your FB posts or truck stickers say then you will want to talk to Him in the way He has provided. Ignoring the Holy Book is not a good look, as they say. You can’t criticize what you don’t read.
My mom before she passed gave to my oldest son a guitar that she bought with her high school graduation money in 1971 from a Western Auto store. He was kind of taken aback as to what to do with it. Learning to play takes a beginning and since as I like to say that skill skipped a generation in my family, when he asked me what to do I said, well the first step is just to pick it up. You can’t become Bob Dylan by looking at it.
The same can be said when it comes to the Bible. Collecting dust is something we do with that box in the attic we don’t know what to do with. Being a Christian comes with it some non-negotiables, and growing in faith is one of them. We can take any part of our lives and compare those things we like to do and those things we don’t and then ask ourselves which ones we value more. The question then becomes, why? It’s really not that complicated. We do one more and spend more money on it because we like it, and enjoy it, and think at least, we get more out of it. The simple reason why people don’t read their copy of the Word of God is born of the fact that they don’t really like Jesus all that much. They love the idea of Him and what He does, but don’t care enough to go any further than that, which is obviously not super acceptable. But, you do you, as they say.
As we close out this word from the study this month I want to encourage you to examine your own heart and ask yourself some pointed questions as to your own walk with the Lord and what it is that keeps you from experiencing the daily feed that He provides in the means of His grace, in the Bible, in prayer, and most especially in Christian fellowship. We aren’t meant to be lone rangers in the faith. Our true growth in love for Jesus begins in the family of God and it will only be strengthened in the same.
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church