I am acutely aware that when some of us were young, we heard from our parents, “Don’t worry about what I am doing, you do as your told!” And so for many of us, we grew up thinking about that a lot. Mom and dad were the ultimate authority and what they said was to be considered law. Well, at least, if we chose not to get a paddling for the day.
I know from my childhood, this was a fact and thus, we are able to see how different my childhood was to that of today’s kids. In the previous years, we find we have been a bit more lenient than our parents; we now see how everything is: “It’s all about ME.” We see how everyone is more concerned with “What I get” rather than how well are we off as a group.
Many of us know from our parents that in their generation they were more concerned in how everyone was doing. Our parents were concerned with how the nation was while engaged in war and otherwise. Our parents were concerned with the congregation as compared to whether they were personally offended by anything that was said. Consider this:
John 13: 34-35 “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
How odd is it, many of us attend church and yet we do not adhere to what the Lord has instructed us to be like. How many times is there conflict in the congregation, with the Lord’s people? Or maybe you have never wondered why people flock to see a movie star wearing so little clothing. Has it ever occurred to you that they are playing to each person’s tune” of “It’s all about ME” and “It’s about what I want to see, what I want to hear.”
Look at how people care about personal wealth: “It’s all for me and what I want!” Now go and ask that person if he or she would be willing to give you a loan. People actually get hostile, if anything they say or do, is considered wrong. And why is it this way? People want whatever they want, they want it to be in their desired manner and that is the end of it all.
Even in the churches today, using the Lord God Almighty as a personal ATM machine, the prosperity and the “feel good” gospel. Whatever it takes for ME to “feel good” and to be happy with what I have, right? Come on folks…let’s be honest about this. How many reading this article are being described here?
People that are well off, drive their Mercedes or BMW’s to church and sit in the pew in their $1000.00 dollar suits and dresses. Do you ever wonder that you will never see “street persons” enter the doors of that church, regardless of how hungry they are? Shameful!
When was the last time you entered into an old folks home? Don’t you just hate how awful it smells in there? All those poor sick people. The old have some real problems to deal with, so let me ask you, do you have any old folks that you have placed in there and forgotten? How would YOU deal with sitting alone every day without the opportunity of thinking someone is going to remember you and come and visit.
How would YOU deal with the idea that YOU have been forgotten and left alone, even to the point of death. How bad is it that YOU are forgotten, that no one cares to be with YOU when you pass away, that you must face that alone? I wonder, how many know about the verse above?
My friends, these are the same people that wouldn’t dirty their hands to help you out of a mud-puddle. Then think, these people have children and then, what are they teaching their children? Now look around, look at all the people; ask yourself, how much do they truly care about anyone else?
Am I being too harsh with everyone here, or are you able to see how well it hits the nail on the head? You talk about how bad the wars are, how horrible that people of every creed and color, die needlessly every day. I must ask, what all are you doing about it? Have you contacted you “representatives,” have you written any letters, changed your vote and told everyone WHY?
How well are you representing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…in your daily life concerning others around you? Do you know anyone that is hungry…anyone that is sick…oops…sorry about that, I must have lost my mind! I KNOW: “It’s all about YOU!”
So now you’re busy thinking that I am hurling accusations at you and yet you have missed that I have also said “ME!” I have far too many faults of my own! Every day, I see the tombstones of those I killed in war! If I had been more concerned with everyone that is hungry in this world, more concerned with those that are sick in this world, I wouldn’t have to be on my knees asking the Lord God for HIS forgiveness of my own failures.
And those that died at my own hands, would now be my friends and their families would have prospered. Maybe if I had not been so concerned with what I think this world should be like, I would have seen how cruel this world of people really is.
I would have tried my best to be different and better, according to the Word of God…to others. My Lord and Savior…Jesus Christ…I have failed you so miserably. Please forgive me. Because I am not able to erase the memories of my own failures there are far too many tombstones in my life!
“Father forgive me for those I have hurt, forgive me for not seeing their needs, forgive me for not putting them before my own wants. If my ‘just rewards’ were according to my actions, the lake of fire would not be horrible enough for someone like me.”
So my friends….what tombstones, what skeletons are you hiding? We will never be good enough for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Thankfully…HE loves us more than our failures…HE is willing to forgive us of our failures. We must firstrecognizewhere and when we failed HIM…withOTHERS.
We have failed at doing what HE has asked us to do, while alive here on this little planet. And for a lot of us, we will not want to read about our failures and know in our hearts…we have failed HIM from the get-go.
So the question now is this: “What do we do from this point forward, how will we change, how can we be according to our Lord and Savior?”
Trials and Tribulations? I believe it’s time for you and me to re-think our lives and what we wish to live for. Maybe this is nothing more than a wake-up call, a siren or a call-to-action alert…but something must change. If not, could it possibly change the numbers of those that will go in the Rapture?! Oops…it just got really serious, didn’t it?