Blogotional

Matt 7:3
"And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"

Everybody is fascinated with the Kansas BTK serial killer now that he has been caught. CourtTV has the best telling of the entire story I have found. It's here.

What has people yapping so is that 'he seemed to be a normal guy, all church going and stuff.' I am not surprised. The church is full of all sorts of sin, most of it far less obvious, far more insidious, and in some cases far more damaging than this guy. It's easy to get on the church, so I won't. But I do think we need to work really, really hard to keep our house in order.

I'll just borrow from Devotional Classics again. This time, William Law.

William Law was a devout Anglican priest. His practical work was as a spir¬itual director, offering guidance to people who sought a closer, deeper relationship with God. The following excerpt is from his best-known work, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, a book that greatly influenced the English Evangelical Revival. The simplicity and directness of this book have made it a classic among Christian devotional literature.

This particular selection deals with the tendency we all have to separate our religious life from our practical, daily life. Law drives home the point that Christianity is concerned not only with our faith but with our conduct as well. In the spirit of the apostle James, William Law affirms that, like a bow and an arrow, our works and our faith function as one.

Rules for Daily Life

The simple point is this: either Christianity pre¬scribes rules to live by in our daily lives, or it does not. If it does, then we must govern all our actions by those rules if we are to worship God. For if Christianity teaches anything about eating and drinking, spending our time and money, how we are to live in the world, what attitudes we are to have in daily life, how we are to be disposed toward all people, how we are to behave toward the sick, the poor, the old, and destitute, whom we are to treat with particular love, whom we are to regard with a particular esteem, how we are to treat our enemies, and how we are to deny ourselves, we would be foolish to think that these teachings are not to be observed with the same strictness as those teachings that relate to prayer.

It is very observable that there is not one command in all the gospel for public worship. One could say that it is the duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture. Frequent church attendance is never so much as mentioned in all of the New Testament. But the command to have a faith which governs the ordinary ac¬tions of our lives is to he found in almost every verse of Scripture. Our blessed Savior and his Apostles were very intent on giving us teach¬ings that relate to daily life. They teach us: to renounce the world and he different in our atti¬tudes and ways of life; to renounce all its goods, to fear none of its evils, to reject its joys, and have no value for its happiness; to be as newborn babes who are born into a new state of things; to live as pilgrims in spiritual watching, in holy fear, and heavenly aspiring after another life; to take up our cross daily, to deny ourselves, to profess the blessedness of mourning, to seek the blessedness of poverty of spirit; to forsake the pride and vanity of riches, to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the profoundest state of humility, to rejoice in worldly sufferings; to reject the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; to bear injuries, to forgive and bless our ene¬mies, and to love all people as God loves them; to give up our whole hearts and affections to God, and to strive to enter through the straight gate into a life of eternal glory.

Isn’t it strange that people place so much emphasis upon going to church when there is not one command from Jesus to do so, and yet neglect the basic duties of our ordinary life which are commanded in every page of the Gospels?