Hey Friends…
Well, this week’s planned vacation didn’t go so well. That nasty head cold bug that’s been going around caught up with me hard all this week—far heavier than I expected last Sunday when I showed up at church with what I thought was just a mild congestion (ooops!!). As evidenced by me even telling you this now, we men especially have a reputation for complaining loudly when we’re sick. It consumes our every thought. We whine incessantly (ask my wife). We mope around. And we fiercely look for every solution possible. But I wonder: Do we put the same vigorous attention to our spiritual unwellness? [Insert uncomfortable cough here.] Let’s talk more about this in Deeper Thoughts below… But first… just three super-quick mentions on important dates… · Men: Our next men’s breakfast and challenge is NEXT Saturday, July 13. More details to come on Sunday! · Ladies: Saturday, July 20… 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. – Let’s meet with God again! Join us for a prayer walk at Morven Park in Leesburg. Click here for more details! · Our memorial service for Mike Anderson will be Saturday, July 20. Time TBD… more info to come… OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who have never had a spiritual cold. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… It’s curious timing that Pastor Will Cravens has been on the schedule to preach this Sunday for a couple of months now. He’s one of our favorites at Mt. Hope, having shepherded many in our congregation in years past. So, whenever he’s in town, I try to grab him to share the Word with us. His humorous and bold approach to the scriptures adds a layer of fun to counterbalance my often-heavy teachings. So… I’ll stay in bed the rest of this week, let Will get the Word put together, and maybe I’ll see you Sunday if the heavy antibiotics I started yesterday have done their work in time. BUT… more curious timing: Will’s teaching for Sunday that he’s received from the Lord ties right into my probing question about our spiritual unwellness. As you can imagine, wellness has been on my mind a lot this week. In part, it might have something to do with my genuine worry that I may have been infected by the Zombie Apocalypse Virus and all of our impending doom will soon result from my breathing on some of you last Sunday. But more likely, my thoughts have to do with the sense that most of us American Christians are limping along with less spiritual vitality than we realize. It’s like we have a chronic low-grade fever of spiritual apathy that we’ve lived with for so long that we don’t even realize we are not well—at least not as well as we could be. Now, don’t get me wrong. Especially around the family at Mt. Hope, I see a lot of passion for the Lord, a lot of commitment to grow in our spiritual lives, and a genuine hunger for God’s Word. We’re a beautiful family seeking the Lord at various levels which are truly authentic to where we each are in our personal journey. So, don’t hear me saying that I think any of us on this email chain are on our spiritual death beds. But I also recognize that when we do face things like an apocalypse--real or imagined—we might discover our desperate need for an even stronger spiritual health than we presently have. We’re in the middle of this teaching series called “God’s Game Plan—Beginning, Middle, End: A study in biblical prophecy.” It’s a study of what God has laid out from the beginning as to where this is all headed. We need to study this so that we can be prepared for… well… an actual apocalypse. The scriptures reveal an apocalypse is indeed coming. It is a mystery whether the end is just around the corner or is further down the road sometime after our own personal departure. But that’s the whole point: Precisely because it’s a mystery, Jesus recommends we be about the business of the Father as if his return is imminent…um… like maybe even today. When Jesus explained in terrible detail where everything is headed (check it out in Matthew 24), he rolled right on into a couple of parables that explained how some folks live fully prepared and how some don’t (see Matthew 25). Jesus told two stories: One about a gaggle of wedding attendants who were lazy in their focus and another about financial stewards who squandered their responsibilities. Both found their master’s unexpected and untimely appearance catching them entirely out of position and out of relationship with the one they were called to serve. When we are sick in bed hacking up microbes of the zombie virus--or Covid, or flu, or strep…pick your poison—it is all we can think about. We lay there desperately committed to do whatever we have to do to get it right. When we are living with a low-grade disease of spiritual apathy, we rarely think about it and have little motivation to change anything. (Hmmm… that might be why we call it apathy.) But what if we had amazing clarity on how real and how close this next chapter is—the chapter where the King of Kings returns and reveals all of His wonder and beauty in unmasked glory; the chapter where we get to see and understand all things for what they really are; the chapter where we get to shed all the suffering and sorrow and pain and disease; the chapter where a brand new reality in both the spiritual and natural realms becomes our home? What if we could see that not in some distant, abstract imagination, but in its actual, immanent splendor? Wouldn’t that make you so anxious--in a good way—to get prepared and live a “no regrets” kind of life? I promise you that Will is going to make this a much more fun, exciting, and humorous conversation than I’m cobbling together for you here. For now, I’ll go pop another antibiotic and some Sudafed and hopefully see you on Sunday. But in the meantime, do some thinking and some praying. Are you hungry to know the Lord with every ounce of preparedness, focus, and drive as you would be driven to get over any yucky unwellness in your life? Are you ready to live a “no regrets” kind of life? What would need to change within you? Let’s seek God together on this. I bet His Word and His servant Will Cravens have something powerful for us this Sunday… 10:00 a.m. in-person (best!), or online livestream (if you have the zombie virus...). Much love (and wellness) to you all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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