Category: Devotion of the Day

Give God The Macedonian

The churches of Macedonia….first gave their own selves to the Lord.
II Corinthians 8:1, 5

We have money in the church today but not many Macedonians. People give their substance but not their selves. Fine churches are built, workers are employed, and the members show up on Sunday morning, but never dream of living for God seven days a week. Actually, every Christian is meant to be in full-time Christian service, whether he draws a salary for it or not. Jesus paid it all and all to Him we owe.

Silver and gold we have a plenty, but we are not saying to a crippled world, “Rise and walk.”

Expensive edifices built with “vain oblation”-gifts without the givers-cannot substitute for giving God the temples of our bodies and hearts. Modern Macedonians give money, but the early Macedonians first gave God the Macedonians! The Early Church was all lay witnesses. Too often now it is big business run by a salaried staff paid to do church work, while the rest of us work for ourselves. But we are all on the staff, and no matter how faithfully salaried helpers may work, they cannot do our job nor can we do ours merely by paying them. God wants the Macedonian first.

The Great Divider

So there was a division among the people on account of him.
John 7:43

Twice again John tells us of division because of Jesus (9:16; 10:19). A lot of pleasant talk about unity these days forgets that Christ is the Great Divider. He came not to send peace but a sword and expressly declared that He would divide families, so that a man’s foes would be they of his own household (Mt. 10:34-36). He divides hearts, homes, churches, humanity. No man can take a stand for Christ without a cleavage. If we gather not with Him we scatter abroad.

But not all division is on account of Christ. “Mark them which cause divisions…and avoid them” (Rom. 16:17). There are trouble-makers who delight in schisms. Be sure your division is on account of Him, not “them.”

But be not deceived by sweet talk about harmony that does not make Christ the issue. He is the sanctuary or a snare (Isa. 8:14) and there is no middle ground. Men fall on that Rock and are broken in repentance or that Rock falls upon them and breaks them in judgment.

He is the Great Divider, and He does not divide men horizontally-high class, middle class, low class-but vertically, to the right and to the left.