This was my entry for the Creative Writing Contest during the Youth Camp last March 29-30 with a theme “My Church, My Responsibility”.
Flee From Irresponsibility
The church is composed of people that are saved by grace and baptized. The church is where your soul will be fed with spiritual food. As we got saved, we became sons of God. As children, we have responsibilities towards our parents. Just like here, we also have responsibilities towards God, our Father. If we will always be fed with the word of God, we will grow gradually and we can already handle many responsibilities.
When we got saved, we automatically have the responsibility to share what we have learned and received to other people. We should do God’s commission: to preach the gospel. If we won’t share the gospel, especially to our loved ones, they will blame us for not telling them. We should have a burden for souls. A burden will cause a believer to feel heaviness and sorrow of heart. It must be a desire of every Christian heart and must be cultivated by prayer.
The church is the body of Christ. As members of the church, we are parts of the body. We are different parts so we have different functions. Don’t say that you are useless to the church, every church member has a use and a function. When we become a member of the church of God after we got baptized, our responsibilities increased. How we handle our responsibilities toward God and the church depends on our faith to God and our growth spiritually.
We are also commanded by God to bring fruits – fruits that will remain – to His fold. When we bring a soul to God’s fold, we should also be responsible of His Christian life. Don’t wait for him to come to you and ask you about God, you should approach him first and bring him to the church so he can learn more and will grow spiritually.
Being a Christian, specifically a church member, comes with the a lot of responsibilities: worship, prayer, Bible reading, giving, obeying God, encouraging fellow believers, supporting missionaries, submitting to the leadership of the under shepherd of the church – the pastor –and many more. Worship is a very important responsibility of every Christian. Worship helps us overcome fear, produces safety, eases prayer and can provide assurance. Another responsibility is giving, we should give, especially to the ministry of God. Give back your tithes to the Lord, we shouldn’t give him just a tip. Don’t give God leftovers, give what is due to Him. We should also give offerings for the ministry of the Lord. Obedience is a must in serving God. Obedience to God affects our destination, duty, and deposit. If we disobey God, surely our life will be ruined. Submitting to the leadership of the pastor is very important. God appointed the pastor to feed His sheep with His guidance, so we should submit to our pastor because God gave him the authority to rule over us. Supporting missionaries is one of our responsibilities. We can support missionaries through prayer and giving finances. If you have a burden for souls, you can support missionaries because they are also sharing the gospel. If you can’t help in terms of financial aspects, you can support them through prayers. Prayers are such a big help to the missionaries.
The reasons why we should do our responsibilities are first of all, because of God’s work in redemption. Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for us. We are not worthy to be saved but because of God’s grace, He gave the eternal life to us as a gift. If you want to receive a crown during the judgment, we should do our responsibilities. We can’t yet fully redeem our reward here because we are not yet home but someday in heaven, we will reap according to what we have done while we are here on earth. We should do our responsibilities wholeheartedly and faithfully so we can get a crown made of gold, silver and precious stones. If we want to enter in the New Jerusalem in the eternity future and have an access to the Tree of Life, we should do our responsibilities faithfully and let’s not be a hypocrite.
Thus, learn to be a responsible Christian, flee from irresponsibility. Don’t be a burden to the church, instead be a helping hand. The church is not the responsibility of the pastor only but of every member of the church. We should help the pastor in carrying the burdens of our church. If we are irresponsible, it can affect the church negatively. Let’s not contribute in pulling down our church but let’s help edify and encourage our church.
Nice