The culture in which we Americans live, indeed, is a changing one. Twenty years ago eight out of ten people in America professed to be of the Christian faith. Ten years ago that number had dropped to 70%. Today (according to Barna, the group that keeps Church statistics) that number has plunged to just 44% with only 10% of Americans in Church on any
given Sunday.
As we approach the Fourth of July, we are reminded that the Declaration of Independence speaks definitively of a Creator who endows people with inalienable rights. Our Constitution talks of basic freedoms we all are entitled to.
We live in an age when most preachers, including myself, talk mostly about grace, mercy, and forgiveness. But in the transforming work of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, He not only forgives but He makes people better. We have talked the month of June about “Living as Children of Light.” (Ephesians 5:8)
The hope of the world does not lie in forgiveness alone. The hope of the world lies in making ourselves into “Children of Light” people who do righteous things, right things! More compassionate and more faithful people who seek to live as God would have them, whether in difficult times or times of blessing.
Once we flew to New Mexico to visit a farmer who bought some dairy cows from us the year before. We left there and went to see Diane’s brother, Earl, in California. As we left El Paso that afternoon, the weather was beautiful, and one could see for miles. But as we came into Los Angeles, the clouds and smog blocked our vision. We could not see the runway till we came down through the smog. We were just feet off the runway when we saw it.
Just as we had faith in that pilot to land on that narrow runway, we need to have faith in the Words of God, the Bible, that God has given us to pilot our lives. If the pilot misses the narrow runway, and lands a few feet off the mark in some field, or in our case the Pacific Ocean, disaster would occur.
Let us be “Children of Light” helping family and friends find the narrow runway to Eternity!
In the Service of Christ,
Pastor Wayne Hall
