Dear Church Family,
As I take a look back over the month of October, one word seems to weave its way through all of our events to bring us to a new place as a church – HOPE. We celebrated the 51st year of our church with a Spirit-filled Homecoming service last Sunday, reuniting with friends we had not seen in such a long time. We witnessed God answering our prayers as we humbled ourselves, prayed, and sought His face, moving in and through the lives of our church members during revival, calling Hannah Martin to be one of His children. We’ve stood in awe the past several weeks at Good News Club as fifteen children have accepted Jesus as their Savior. We had a blast during the Fall Festival as over thirty kids attended this fun-filled event. And now today, we will join together as we move outside the walls of the church to participate in the Reverse Trick-or-Treat, inviting lost people in our neighborhood to attend an outdoor service where the Gospel will be preached. I hope you see that keyword now…HOPE!
While Halloween may not be the most “Christian holiday” on the calendar, I stumbled across a great little devotion that will help remind us of God’s love and the hope we have in Him. So the question we have to answer is this: How is a Christian like a pumpkin?
A lady recently being baptized was asked by a co-worker what it was like to be a Christian. She replied, "It's like being a pumpkin: God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off you may have gotten from the other pumpkins. Then he cuts the top off and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, along with all the sin that separates us from Him. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."
We are not pumpkins, but all of us are something like one. God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off you may have gotten from the other pumpkins. While this parallel may be a stretch, pumpkins have an inside and an outside very similar to us. The outside is what people see, and the inside is like our soul or our heart. A pumpkin left to itself will soon rot and die. We will die someday too. When we look inside of the pumpkin, we see a whole bunch of icky stuff inside, just like God can see the sin inside of us. Ecclesiastes 9:3 says “this is what we look like to others and what we are like when are hearts are not changed. The hearts of men are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live.” So how do we get rid of this terrible stuff inside? We must be open to God to come in and change our lives. By opening the top of the pumpkin, we can now reach down inside and pull out all of the seeds and pulp. The Bible tells us that Jesus is ready to do the same thing with our sin: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” But if we leave a pumpkin with just the insides taken out, then it's just hollow. We need to have a light inside that will truly make us alive! Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.' As we add a light to the inside of the pumpkin and carve a smiling face, we realize the light that is now the Hope of Christ is shining through for all to see! "
May we see God’s hope shining all around us, especially through the outlet of our own lives. May we take the hope of God’s salvation to the doorsteps of our community in love. May we be faithful to the age old command from our Savior to “Go, and make disciples.”
Happy Halloween, Matt Freeman
