Can’t wait to see you at ABC this week. All season long we have focused on this theme: “A Summer of 3:16.” Each week we look at a passage in the Bible that is found in a 3rd chapter the 16th verse. This week we will study Malachi 3:16, here is the verse in its context:
“You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? 15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’”
16 Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.
17 “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. 18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. (Malachi 3:14-18)
Our culture is going crazy in self-interest and sin. And serving God is more difficult than ever. The alternative to keeping a tender heart and loving people in Christ’s name is “to give your heart to no one.” Look at this powerful C.S. Lewis quote:
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
This week at ABC, we are going to talk together and remember. I know the Lord will listen and act!
Join us on the 30th street beach in Avalon at 9am this Sunday. Bring your beach chair, some Wawa coffee and a whole car load of family and friends!
Avalon Beach Church 