Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)

Watch Cat

Recently we acquired a cat named Charlie. Charlie is a white and yellow tabby and is very friendly. One of Charlie's outstanding characteristics is his acute awareness of his surroundings. He seems to notice the slightest noise and movement. Charlie is also very curious so when he perceives an unusual sound or activity he immediately investigates. It's fascinating to watch Charlie as he maintains a keen watch over his surroundings.

God wants us to be like Charlie the cat. He wants us to have an acute awareness of our surroundings. God wants us to notice what is happening in our own personal life, the life of our family, and the life of our church. And when we see or hear something unusual, God wants us to check it out and discern its potential effect.

The Apostle Paul said to the elders at the church in Ephesus: "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28)."¹ Jesus also tells us to keep a close watch: "And He was giving orders to them, saying, "Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (Mark 8:15)." Jesus warns us to watch out for ungodly attitudes that will, like yeast, spread throughout a church and affect the whole church.

We will be diligent to watch over our life, our family, and the church if we seek God in his word, seek God in prayer, and seek God through our personal relationships. In the word of God we are reminded of the potential dangers that lurk in our own hearts--selfishness, pride, envy, and malice. In prayer, God shows us when these ungodly attitudes have crept into our life and gives us an opportunity to confess them so that he can cleanse us and fill us with his Spirit to produce in us kindness, love, and humility. Through our personal relationships we become conduits of God's love to others and we become recipients of God's love and grace as he ministers to us through our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Charlie the cat doesn't let much get by him without his noticing. When something seems out of the ordinary he wants to know what it is and what, if anything, he should do about it. We too should not be unaware of the negative forces that can affect our church. We need to recognize the hidden dangers that lurk in the shadows of our own heart and that may appear in the church. Then we need to seek God in his word, in prayer, and in our personal relationships to be able to know how best to respond to these threats.

Praying that God will give us spiritual discernment,

Pastor Steve Lorenz
April 25, 2008

¹ Acts 20:28, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.

Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. One of Jesus' techniques was to relate spiritual ideas to common everyday life. Pensamientos (afterthought) is an attempt to follow Jesus' method of teaching. Its title is in Spanish because we recognize the importance of multi-culturalism. We hope to translate some of these messages into Spanish soon.

Find more afterthoughts at Pensamientos (afterthoughts).

You can read recent sermons by Pastor Lorenz at Featured Sermon.