Thought for 12 April

 Luke 9:26

Jesus said: If a person is ashamed of me and my message, I, the Son of Man

, will be ashamed of that person when I return in my glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels. 

Over the course of my own lifetime, the numbers going to church and the numbers attending church groups have been on a gradual decrease.  When I was at primary school, most of the boys in my class attended the Life Boys on a Monday evening.  I would ‘walk’ from the bottom of Holytown up to the church hall with enough money for my collection and enough to get a tanner’s worth of chips on the way home from Johny’s chip shop just down past the shop that used to be Laings (and now is a Chinese take-away).  It was the norm for wee boys to do that at that time.  Few of the mums and dads had cars, it was normal to walk and parents didn’t fear for their children when they let them walk and trusted them with the leaders of whatever group they were attending.  There was never a fear of embarrassment being part of an organisation such as I’ve mentioned, it was normal. 

Many changes have happened over the years.  At the time referred to earlier, few families holidayed abroad for instance.  We had two channels on our televisions (which were normally quite small and deep and programmes were in black and white).  We got around on the 44 or the green bus and you could get a bus that would take you to Ayr (eventually).  You could even get an appointment with a doctor or dentist at short notice.  When people went out for a walk, they enjoyed the scenery and fresh air (and nobody had their face transfixed on their cell phone). 

I guess change under the auspices of progress is inevitable and we have few options other than to accept it and maybe even embrace it.  I imagine that the more choices we have in how we should fill our time can result in opportunities that we didn’t previously have or maybe it can end up just cluttering our lives with too much to fit in and too little time in which to fit it. 

Earlier, I mentioned what was the ‘norm’ for all those years ago and possibly the opposite would be the ‘exception’.  Churches are kept going today predominantly by folks in their sixties, seventies and eighties.  In the age groups below this it would appear that it is now the exception to take anything to do with church.  This, in turn means there is more folks to question your choices and beliefs which makes it harder to stand up against them.  As the trend s of progress accelerate, the numbers in church are going in the opposite direction. 

We need to pray hard for a reversal of this trend, for Jesus not to be designed out of Christmas and Easter and to give us the strength against ever increasing odds to stand up for our Lord and to return a little bit to him for the terrible sacrifice he made for us at Calvary.  He lives today for each and everyone who looks to him.  Let none of us ever be ashamed of that. 

Prayer –  Heavenly Father, we praise and thank You for the Word of God, the living Word and the written Word. Help us to read, learn, inwardly digest, and act on all that is contained within the pages of the Bible. May we glimpse more and more of Your glory as we learn of You, in spirit and in truth.  We also pray that the time will never come when we are ashamed of our belief in You.  In Jesus' name, Amen.