Sunday, November 4, 2012

Bench Marks


Jesus is Lord
courtesy photobucket.com
 
Taking notes and gleaning from his sermon as Pastor Jerry was preaching.  He was reading from several scriptures from both old and new testaments. 

Pastor reminded us that as Christians our Benchmark is: The Lord is Our God.”  He does not change!  Moses brought us the law written on stone, and declared:

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Jesus repeated this and added to it:  Mark 12:29-31  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:  And you shall love the Lord your God with all thy heart, and with all your soul, and with all thy mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment.   And the second is like it, namely this; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

We might ask, what is a Benchmark?   From Wikipedia:  It has been defined as: a reference point by which something can be measured.  A best-performing test, also called the gold standard.  A solid and immovable point often used by builders and map makers. 

Hebrews 12:28  Wherefore we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved - -

Christ has broken down the wall, and has given us the Law of Love and a new covenant.

In life bad things happen that shake our faith.  We live in troubled times, with recession; many lose money in their investments. We hear of earthquakes, fires, floods and tidal waves destroying lives and property.  Homes that were there yesterday are gone today, with thousands left homeless.

We need a balance a solid place to stand and one that will not move.  God’s Word can bring us comfort even in our loss.

Churches have ups and downs at times with a loss of vision and trying to hold steady.  We can be thankful for Ministry within the church, even our current Bazaar that brought in a good return for all the hard work.  Funds not just to cover expenses, but used as well between missions and the homeless.  It was also a time of serving our community and fellowship for our church and for those from the outside who attended.

The church may have changes; some will agree and willingly accept.  Others may not like the new ways of doing things and wish we would go back to the way it used to be.

Education for instance, the schools still teach the 3 R’s but today it is in different forms from when we went to school.

When we are hit with a problem, know that with God - - we can start again!

We must not lose our benchmark of the Scriptures:  The Lord our God is one Lord!  He is our solid Rock and in Him we can safely trust.

 
This post is Linked with Charlotte’s Spiritual Sundays
Also Linked up with Michelle’s  Hear it on Sunday
 

 

1 comment:

Jody Lee Collins said...

Hazel--I clicked on this while stopping by "Hear it on Sunday..." because we are inundated with 'benchmarks' at the school where I teach. Yikes! Tests measuring children's abilities. They make me cringe--children cannot be measured by the same test.
AND, our Jesus? The benchmark by which we measure all things? Yes, He is!