A common plot in a film: a single mother who works hard to raise her children. But when the children grow up, they feel that she is a burden to them, making them too heavy and unable to breathe. She has to live alone in poverty when she is old.
When parents raise their children, do they have to return their love?
God brings us blessings, do we have to return the blessings?
When I shared with you how to make St Peter’s church stronger, some people may feel indifferent. Why? They may think that:-
- What does St Peter’s have to do with me?
- What does it matter to me if it is stronger?
- Whether St Peter’s grows or not has nothing to do with me!
Anyway, there are more than 200 churches in Ipoh. Isn’t it the same to go to any church? They are all churches, so there is not necessary to go to St Peter’s Church. If St Peter’s Church does not meet my needs, why should I go there?
This reaction is a normal human behaviour. You may think that you are right.
But you forgot one thing. You forgot that you are part of the church. In fact, you are a church. You can be at St Peter’s Church, you can be at any church, but you are a church and you must grow, you must progress, you must become more committed to God, and therefore you must be a disciple of Christ.
Your responsibility is to make the church stronger. Which means you have to make yourself stronger. Not only you have to make yourself stronger, you have an obligation to make the church stronger too.
Why? This is because we must gather our strength and unify our resources so that we can maximize our effectiveness to extend God’s ministry. We cannot work alone, we are parts of the body and we must co-operate with each other so that the church can function well.
There is no such thing in this world as just being a Christian. If you think there is, that is a proof that you need discipleship training because you are completely ignorant of what the Bible teaches. All you have are prejudices, or incomplete teaching of the Bible.
Wherever you are, which can be at St Peter’s, or any other churches, you must contribute to make the church stronger.
Back to the plot. As the saying goes, things can happen for many reasons. Perhaps the mother, in the process of raising her children, unknowingly also raised them with much sorrow, resentment and bitterness within her heart, creating their distorted personality.
Perhaps the children are white-eyed wolves, ungrateful persons.
Human love is not perfect. But what about God? If God is not the problem, are we the problem? Why are we indifferent to the development of the church? Should we repent?