Good morning, friends.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 5:9, “Then Peter said to her, ‘How is it that you have agreed to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.’”
In the final episode of the fourth season of the television show M*A*S*H, a war correspondent visits the hospital unit to interview some of the soldiers. He asks them about the level of medical care they are able to provide, their families, the morale of the unit, the relationships they have formed with their compatriots, and much more. One of the questions posed was whether the experience of being in Korea had changed them in any way. The unit’s priest, Father Mulcahy, answers it this way: “When the doctors cut into a patient and it’s cold, you know, the way it is now, today…steam rises from the body, and the doctor will warm himself over the open wound. Could anyone look on that and not feel changed?” There is perhaps no order of change or impact that can compare with the effects of serving in the midst of a war. For me to even speculate how that time can change a person is so beyond my capacity that I wouldn’t dare for fear of insulting those who suffered through so much. But like you, I do know firsthand a little about being changed. I am not as I was, nor am I how I want to be. But I have not yet experienced the degree of change that Sapphira underwent that fateful day she tested the Lord. On that day, she walked into the meeting place of the apostles, but she did not walk out. She came in alive, but was carried out dead.
And it is that radical change that confronts me as I consider the Sunday routine of going to church. For somewhere in those hours spent among the people of God, testifying to the greatness and God, and bowing before the authority of God’s Word, I’m thinking that a change should be taking place. For whatever occurred during the week prior, this time should be the overflow of expression to the One who made it all. And for whatever will come to pass in the upcoming week, this time should be the sending out point for love and grace. We, you and I, should walk in one way, and leave another. There should be a death that takes place, a death of our selves. And we should be carried out, sustained by the Spirit of our Lord. Could anyone look upon Him and not feel changed?
As we seek Him today, expect to experience God, on the Lord’s day and every day. And desire the change that is only and always for the better.
Have a special weekend.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
