A Great Homecoming

Good morning, WUBC!

I am back from vacation and ready to go to work.

For my vacation, I went home. No, not my home on Waldo Run in good ole Doddridge County. I went home to Milton on the Mud, and it was a wonderful time with family and extended family. I had the pleasure of being with my Grandmother, parents, sisters and brother. I was able to spend time with all those who had married into the family, with cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. There were so many people there, my brother and I had to completely enclose the back deck with temporary plastic walls where we placed tables and chairs we borrowed from my home church, Union Baptist out back-o-Milton. We had Turkey and ham with all the extras, and the fellowship was wonderful. There is something very special about going home that is indescribable. It is a sense that can only be experienced to be understood.

Some day, we all will share in a great homecoming with a table and fellowship prepared by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Words cannot express the joy we will one day have together as we sit with old acquaintances and meet great saints of our Lord. We will sing and celebrate the majesty of our Lord who died and rose again so that we can be there, and it will be a great time of eternal Thanksgiving with Him.

You know. Sometimes I get discouraged by our efforts to invite friends to come to church with us. Sometimes, I get very tired of trying to find new, dynamic ways of doing outreach in an attempt to help others find the salvation we share in Christ. We try to make our services appealing to the unchurched, we try to communicate the good news relevantly to a generation that does not understand their need, and we try to plead with people to make the decision to be close followers of Christ. All the while we hear things such as, "I know I need to go to church, but I just don't have the time." Or, "I will be there someday," but someday never comes. Or, we hear, "I can't go to that church because that is where so and so goes."

All of those excuses are great, except for one thing. Those excuses exist in a temporary, life journey in a world that will someday melt with fervent heat. They exist in a moment that serves to get the one issuing the invitation to give up and leave the question of church attendance for another time. The excuses fail to take into account that there is a great homecoming one day for the saints of the Lord, and a terrible day of judgment for those who decided to reject His invitation.

For the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of a broken soul, let us not become discouraged in well-doing. Let us all be renewed and dedicated to answering the call of Christ to compel whosever will to come.