I Love Our Members

It is a blessing for me to be a member in our church. There are people such as Coach Homer Horton who wrote this last Sunday on Facebook:

Church notes from the past. Sept 3, 1989. Bro. Jim Cook's devotion, You can't climb a mountain unless you have some bumps and rocks to climb on. Use your troubles to be a stepping stone for a better relationship with Jesus Christ.

I’m in the process of clearing stuff – and I have a few stacks of notes from church services.I’ll be going through them, not just tossing them out, and I hope I find something as this – a thought from a friend kept for years.

We didn’t join this church until 2000, so we weren’t there to hear Jim Cook’s devotion. We did get to attend Sunday School classes while he was our superintendent, and that was a blessing. He set an example of grace under pressure as he was treated for and dying from brain cancer. Always in the service of his Lord and Savior.

Our church is not large. Can’t be when it’s miles from any city, surrounded by acreages, farms and in a community that consists of one gasoline station, some homes and a couple of churches. Yet it holds Wednesday services for close to two hundred from children to adults. That’s a good turnout, isn’t it? Because we have workers who care enough to provide transportation for children and youth as well as teaching them about God’s love.

I could introduce you to family after family who look forward to assembling several times through the week to worship and fellowship with believers. We will repeat that process each week, celebrating the risen Lord each first day, then seeking His will for our service during the week.

Our Bible suggests strongly that we do so:

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25 KJV)

It’s a simple thing, isn’t it, assembling together. The harder part is exhorting one another when facing trouble. There’s no casual, “How are you?” The question is a real one – we’re asking how a person is physically, spiritually and emotionally so that we can be of support to them. We can support with prayer or assistance.

We share joy and grief, gain and loss, the illness and health, all those seasons of life of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. We need to be ready to share them with our congregation, to uphold them when needed and to rejoice with celebrations.

It’s part of Jesus’ last commandment:

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:34-35 KJV)