Meditations with Pastor Tom (8/29/20)

""Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'” ~ Matthew 22:37 

            I remember when I was a young Christian, I was in a discipleship class with the pastor of the church I was attending.  (Try demanding a discipleship class and see how I react!)  The pastor asked the class what we thought God would ask us at the Great Judgment Day.  It's funny, I can't generally remember what I did yesterday, but I can recall my answer 35 years later. 

            I said to him, "I think the question might be the same for all of us. What did you do with your time and money?"  I don't think my answer would be the same today, but I still think there's something worth pondering in my answer.  What we do with our time and our money reveals in the plainest, starkest way where our hearts truly lie.  We can talk all we want about loving something - like God - but how we use our money and our moments speaks the real truth. 

            Our children and grandchildren know we love them because they see the way we devote time and treasure to them.  Might it not be the same way God can tell how much we love God?  Now, I want to be careful here.  I don't want anyone to think I am suggesting that we have to earn God's love by doing the right things or giving the right amount of money to God's work.  I don't believe that at all.  However, Jesus puts loving God at the very tip-top of his priority list, and so we simply cannot hide from its importance.   

            My answer today would probably be a mini-dissertation about judgment days, and God's grace, and hearts filled to overflowing with unconditional love, and more.  I would probably bore the pastor to the point he would never dare ask the question again.  Yet, my simple answer back then still deserves some consideration.  Even more importantly, though, we all need to be asking this question of ourselves.  "How am I showing that I love God with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my soul?" 

The Sermon this Sunday 

Turn the Other Cheek --- Really?