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Our Need for God

We are entering the season of Lent, a season of the church year in which God calls us ever more deeply to stop and consider our sinful ways, to deny ourselves, and to meditate on the gift of Christ’s death on the cross that brought us salvation. 

The season begins with a Scripture lesson from the life of Jesus in which the Spirit called Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. During this trial, Jesus fasts from food and drink for forty days. The devil then comes and tempts Him with all the comforts of the world. The experience pushes Jesus to the max, but in the end He denies all the devil’s attempts to snatch Him away, declaring boldly to the face of the enemy, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Author Maggie Combs questions what we often consider to be a need for an “escape” in our lives. It could be a vacation, a sneak-away to our cupboard for a piece of chocolate, a bubble bath. All these can be good things, she says, but the problem comes when we elevate these “escapes” to a need. Considering them needs, we start to fight for them. When we don’t receive them, we get angry, short-tempered, bitter. These needs, Combs argues, come to take the throne in our lives in place of our need for God. 

Jesus’ departure to the wilderness is a challenge for us. It’s a challenge for us to look deeper at what we think our needs are. Yes we need food; yes we need clothing; yes we need rest. Our Heavenly Father knows we need these things (Matthew 6:32). But what other things, what other so-called needs, have come to take the place in our lives for our need for God? While Jesus may have hungered, while He may have had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:19), while He was betrayed and rejected, Jesus was never lacking. He was never alone. Why? Because He had God (John 16:32). “And my God will supply all of your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). There are some things that the human heart requires to survive that only God can provide. 

What “need” has come to take the place of God in your life? This Lent, consider putting it aside so that you might find all that you truly need met in God. 

Amen. 

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Garritt and Sanette Fleming

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members, though they are many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)

A Body Working Together

If you have ever been in a tandem kayak before, then you know how essential it is for you and your partner to be paddling in the same direction. If one of you paddles forward while the other paddles backwards, then you aren’t going to go anywhere. Not only that, but your paddles are bound to collide like swords in a sword fight. 

This is what can happen on the lake or the river on a kayak, but so often this is what happens in the church. Jesus calls us to be one body, working together for His glory, but so often we find ourselves unaware of what others are doing or even in competition against each other rather than working together toward a shared goal and moving in the same direction. The lack of synchrony can also lead us to a place of stagnancy, of not really knowing what we’re supposed to be doing as a church. 

And yet we’re reminded again that Instead of many different “bodies” each doing his or her own thing, Jesus has called us to be one body, all working together in the service of our Lord. When God’s people live in unity it is a blessed thing (Psalm 133:1). Great things can be done that could not have been done otherwise. 

This year, our prayer and objective as a congregation is to move from being a just collection of people who might know each other, gather in the same building, and serve God in our own individual ways, to being a family that works together, that serves together, that cares for each other, and that seeks to work toward a common effort to please the Lord. We will be uniting around a singular theme and purpose:  “Schoeneck’s call to mission and service.” Each ministry in the church, such as the Senior Youth Fellowship or the Hospitality Ministry, will play a role in fulfilling this call and will work not alone but in tandem with another ministry in the church in this objective. More information will be shared throughout this month. 

Uniting around a common purpose, with each arm of the church doing something to contribute to the goal, we pray that we will be stronger for the Lord and will be able to accomplish greater things than had we been working alone. 

Before He left the disciples to go to the cross, Jesus prayed that God would make His disciples one so that the world see us and believe that God had truly sent Jesus the Christ into the world (John 17:21). This year, we pray that God would join us together as a congregation in one mind and one purpose so that through us, others might come to believe in Him. Amen. 

In Christ Alone,

Revs. Garritt and Sanette Fleming