The Rochester Family Visited Again!

If you search this blog for “Rochester” you’ll find a blog a year about their visits. Their music is awesome (if you like blue grass gospel, and amazingly, I know a couple that don’t!) and uplifting. They bring us something old and something new. I have over ten hours on an iPod to play on trips. I think I have more of their CDs that what’s listed on their Music page.

A favorite is “I’m A Soldier”, which begins:

I'm a soldier bound for Glory
I'm a soldier going home
Come and here me tell me story
All who love the savior come

I love the chorus:

I love Jesus, Hallelujah
I love Jesus, yes I do
I love Jesus, He's my Savior
Jesus smiles and loves me too

Their visit isn’t all music, though. They do put on a concert at our small country church Saturday night for the entire community, and people come from other counties, too. We offer a free BBQ sandwich, baked beans and chips – and your choice of tables of desserts our families bring in. Oh, there’s Deb’s Sopapilla Cheesecake, David’s Texas Sheetcake, maybe even Tina’s Lemon Pie or Lorene’s Banana Pudding. Remember that for next spring when the Rochesters visit our church again.

They sing for Sunday School, and some for morning worship – but then Scott Matthews preaches.  This past Sunday his scripture reference was Philippians 1:6:

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6 KJV)

I found my notes from his sermon very sparse. I was too busy listening and watching him move across the room, making eye contact, knowing he was speaking to each of us, personally.

He told personal experiences, too, just as Paul did when he was writing. One was about his daughter, with him at a fast-food picking up meals. When they returned to their car, they past a group of young men lounging outside the door. She asked Scott if she could give them a tract and he said, “Yes,” so she took one from the car.

She handed a Christian tract to a young man standing with a group of others. He batted her hand away, refusing to take it. She offered it again and one of the others took it from her hand. The first man grabbed it, pulled out his lighter, set it on fire, dropped it to the ground and laughed at her.

Scott, as any father, was incensed at his daughter’s treatment, but when she returned to the car and asked him what she should do, he was able to say, “Pray for him.”

That may have been the only time anyone offered that young man a glimpse of what Christians have to offer. All we have to offer to anyone is the story of Jesus given in the gospels and the spreading of his word through the letters His apostles wrote. We are not confined to printed words, however, because we can show those stories with our lives – if we have applied His words to the actions of our lives.

How can we tell if we have? Read His words and see how they are applied to lives. We must transform our lives to match what He commands:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40 KJV)