Me Worry?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Matthew 6:27
I have, no doubt, told you many times about the Methodist minister in Stephenville, Texas, John Wesley Ford (1908-1970), who gave my mother a clipping from the newspaper which was titled "Ten Ways to Worry Scientifically". My mother was a worrier - and so, I am afraid, am I.
What a sin, and what a waste of time and energy, and, yet, I seem to do it, anyway, while I endeavor not to!
Today's sermon, preached at St. John's in Fort Worth by our "adopted" son, Father Bill Estes, stressed the type of love we are to have in our lives, if we are to be true to Christ's teachings. He explained that it isn't the warm, fuzzy we feel for close friends. It isn't the marriage or family sort of love, but, rather, it is a love manifested in us by our following the Ten Commandments
In His act of love, Jesus took all of our sins upon Himself and absolved us of those sins, even though he had been absolutely free from sin.
Bill also said something else that truly hit home. He said we should love even those people that aren't very nice, those people that are aggravating to us, those people who just plain make us mad - and he said, correctly, we are often those very people to our friends and neighbors. We are those aggravating, maddening, not very nice people. I surely know I am! But sometimes I just plain don't want to admit my faults.
And yet, if we are to do as Christ told us, we must own up to all our sins, our mistakes, our wrong-doing. We must follow Christ as He told us to follow Him. We must abide by all the commandments, and we must love everyone!! Everyone!
Bill ended his message by stating that, although our world does look bleak and he doesn't know what's going to happen to our state, our nation, our world any time soon, he does know the end of the story!
Do you know the end, too? I do! And if we believe, follow, love, we will be there at the End to celebrate it with our Risen Lord. Amen!
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