I got in a little bit of trouble today. Well maybe I wasn’t so much in trouble as I
was spoken to. You see one of the things
I take great joy in doing is giving the devotion at one of my local Habitat for
Humanity sights. I thought they were going great; until today that is. I knew
something was up when one of the leaders walked by me and said “are you going
to keep it short, sweet, and non-denominational today?” Oh no!
What did he mean by non-denominational?
I always give a message from the Bible, and most all denominations use
the Bible to some degree or another.
Whether he wants me using the Bible or not, evidently I’ve also been a
little long winded (it’s a good thing this guy hasn’t heard any of my Sunday
morning sermons). I immediately started
worrying about the text I thought I was going to teach from and changed it over
to something I thought would be not so offensive. I had planned to talk about the Cretans
mentioned in Titus 1. What if they got
confused and thought I was calling them no good lazy gluttons (you’d have to
read it). So instead I read the parable
of the Prodigal son and talked about God’s love for us as lost people.
Once I was done, one of the ladies approached me to
talk. Oh boy. Turns out she is Jewish, and the guy with the
helpful suggestion up front was her husband and is Jewish too, and I’ve been
talking about Jesus way too much.
Wups. We actually proceeded to
have a very civil and nice conversation.
To sum up her thoughts she wanted me to be less preachy, use less of the
Bible, to not talk about Jesus, and to simply give some nice thoughts
appreciating the workers. Oh yea; and to
do all of that in less time. (Turns out she timed me and 7 minutes was still
too long) My initial response was “I
don’t think I can do that.” Keeping
Jesus out of my messages is a completely foreign concept to me. When you believe the words of scripture
claiming Him as the Way the Truth and the Life it’s kind of hard to keep Him
out of your teachings. I didn’t want to
come across as arrogant and I tried to humbly explain my convictions and we had
a good discussion about whether or not I could continue to share devotions
there while still keeping to my convictions.
I’m still not sure if I can, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’m going to give it a shot because despite
my new critics I also know there are many who have been captivated by what God
has given me to share. Two devotions ago
I had a man come up to me afterwards to pray for something very personal going
on in his family. I know he would not
have asked me that if he didn’t see me as someone with convictions about what I
was sharing. I think God is making a
difference through me in these short devotions.
So I’m going to see if I can pull it off because if I give up, than
that’s one less Jesus loving preacher Habitat has to give their devos. I think next time I’ll go with the two
greatest commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and
strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
At least that can be found in the Old Testament, and I’ll keep quiet
about you know who saying that’s what sums up all of the law. Hopefully they will be okay with me talking
about the one true God of the Bible, and I’ll do my best to keep it to myself
that the one true God includes His Son. Because
that’s where my line is drawn. I’ll keep
opening the Bible, and I’ll keep talking about the one true God, and if that’s
still not good enough for them, then that would be a darn shame, because all
that would be left is false teaching.
