A Word Remembered

Long years ago when I was in the mid years of my ministry, I remember something Ed Carruth, our District Superintendent said to us in a meeting as he was trying to get his preachers on board with some Conference program.  It came in response to a preacher who up and said, "Brother Ed, you don't need to convince us, just tell us to do it and we will do it."  It is Brother Ed's response that I remember as he said, "If the only reason you do it is because I said do it, then you are doing it for the wrong reasons."  Ed Carruth proved himself many times to be one of the wiser Superintendents.     

Too much of what is done in the church has been done and continues to be done because someone has said to do it.  When the thinking and personal choice is aborted, good things do not happen.  Maybe they happen, but for the wrong reasons.  When we blindly follow the line of the company store in the church, we only betray ourselves and our own obedience to Christ.    

What we are called to do by Christ and what the insitutuional church wants us to embrace may not be the same thing.  Of course, the possiblity does exist that both are one in the same, but usually the institututional church is concerned too much about self preservation while Christ is not concerned about the presevation of self.  Had that been His motive, the cross never would have been raised on Golgotha. The Scripture teaches us to listen to those who have spiritual authority over us, but it never calls us to ignore what the Spirit is saying to us in our own hearts. It is not always an easy road, but then the road Christ called us to walk was never put forth as a Sunday stroll through a rose garden.