Religion As A Servant of Christ

It's late at night and I need to get to sleep but before my mind will rest I'm needing to "talk" a bit about something that the Lord has been laying on my heart for the past few days.  I've been preparing, bit by bit, for the third message in a series on "Christianity and Religion: What's the Difference?"  I've been considering how, in the scriptures, religion can be a servant of Christ (as in when certain good habits, spiritual disciplines and customary behaviors, like going to church on Sundays) but how, if it does not stay in the servant role, but, instead, becomes the master, that it becomes a self-serving enemy of God (as we saw last week in our study of Second Timothy chapter 3).

My plan for this coming Sunday is to use First Samuel 3, the familiar "call of Samuel," as a way of talking about how a religious man like Eli the Priest can serve God (as when he discerns that the Lord is calling the boy Samuel) while at the same time allowing horrible religious abuses to go on under his roof.  The religious leaders of those days, symbolized in this case by Eli's sons, were using their religious position to benefit themselves.  Eli, however, recognized the truth of God's voice when it came to him, even when it came with judgment against him and his family.

I pray that all religious people would be as wise as Eli when he said: It is the Lord.  Let us bow before God and obey his Word--whatever the cost.

There's a lot more I could write, but I really need to sleep now.  5:30 comes early!

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