Maybe the best sermon I have ever experienced
The church where I serve has an overwhelming wealth of great preachers. My friend, Andrew Gill, is among them and in January he shared what will go down as one of the best I have ever experienced personally. For those who aren’t Harmony people I wanted to put it up here so you could experience it too, and for those of you who are I want to encourage you to watch it again.
Tornadoes, Storms, and Weather Prediction
All it takes is one guy on a weather channel to create an algorithm that predicts bad weather and the next thing you know schools are dismissing early, work grinds to a halt, evening plans get cancelled, and life moves to the basement.
When God adopted you and I as His kids we become that guy. We proclaim that based upon the algorithm that is God’s Word that unless you repent then Hell, which is far worse than death by tornado, is your destiny. And regardless of whether or not we stay there for eternity or just overnight my guess is a moment is too long.
So how are you doing at predicting the weather? Is anyone heeding your warning?
Practice Makes Perfect
Practice makes perfect was a mantra in my household, and practice I did. I can remember shoveling snow off of the driveway, and eventually the basketball court out back, in order to shoot basketball. It could take twenty or thirty shots before the ball would fall through the frozen net without help. I would imagine being at the free throw line needing to hit two shots to win the game, or shooting half court shots at the buzzer. Sometimes I would even practice the celebration after one went in.
While I keep resisting the fact that I am getting older I am afraid that my basketball playing days will soon be behind me, sadly, but my kids still can play sports. One year my kids needed a soccer coach, and I knew very little about the game, but I was willing to learn. Now I enjoy playing and I even enjoy watching. I appreciate the technical difficulty of the game as well as the physical fitness necessary to play. Having five children all playing the sport I continually try to encourage them to practice. When I see a kid do what Iya does in this video I can only imagine how many hours went into perfecting each trick.
When I think about the effort it takes to draw near to the Lord, and how often when people need to experience His presence they struggle. Many times it’s because they expected to play the game of life without practicing life with Christ. We try to call upon the talent of faith without ever trying to perfect it. It’s like stepping up to the line with the game tied and time expired, but we’ve never shot a free throw before. What might we expect the result to be? Where in your life are you failing to practice?