Monday mornings around here are pretty much the same from week to week. It's laundry day. And declutter from the weekend day. And, since those tasks don't require a great deal of brain power, it's also a good day for thinking. For pondering.
Often I find myself thinking about the previous day's lesson in our Life Group, or about the pastor's message from the previous morning, or about his teaching at our Sunday evening Bible study.
Today is one of those hard-to-get-myself-going Mondays. This is the first Monday morning after the time change, so my body clock is out of sorts. And it's raining again here in South Carolina. Sigh.
None of that is really the source of my pondering this morning. Rather, I've been thinking about Halloween, that holiday celebrated this past weekend. Before you get your tutu in a twist, this is not a post about how you chose to celebrate Halloween, or if you choose to celebrate it at all.
As I'm going about my tasks this morning, it is my friend Jill's status update on Facebook that is front and center in my thoughts. It was Halloween that triggered her post on Facebook and this is part of what she had to say:
"People in this nation spend more money on costumes for their pets than all mission enterprises together." (Dr. Jill Branyon)
She's right. In this nation, we spend a lot of money on costumes and candy and decorations for the craziness that is Halloween. But it isn't just Halloween. We'll do it again, minus the costumes, for Thanksgiving. And for Christmas. And for Valentine's Day. And for any other occasion that we can think of.
Don't misunderstand me. I like a party as much as the next person. I enjoy decorating my home and preparing special foods for the holidays. There's nothing inherently wrong with those things. It's just a matter of priorities.
In recent months in our church, we have been studying the Book of Acts. We are studying it with a view toward how we as Christians should be living in what may well be the last days, as we are nearer and nearer to the return of Christ. What was the Church like in its early days? How do we compare? What can we learn from them about how we should be living and "doing church"?
Like the early Church, we have been commissioned to take the Gospel to the nations.
How much time and energy and money are we expending in that endeavor?
How much time and energy and money did you spend on Halloween? How much time and energy and money are you spending for Thanksgiving and for Christmas? And how does that compare to the amount of time and energy and money you are expending to spread the Gospel?
That's something we all need to think about. Because, for too many of us, too much of the time, our priorities are out of order!
"You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Acts 1:8 ESV)
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