“You snooze, you lose,” is an anxiety phrase. Those revved-up words keep my fight-or-flight, sympathetic nervous system jacked up and begging for some diffused lavender oil.
Nowhere better do the “you snooze, you lose” sentiments get played than at the grocery store checkout counters. Sherry and I go into our two-seven offense to find the shortest line. Sherry will glance at the first three lanes, and I’ll quickly scan the last four. Then we’ll make intentional head nods to invade the fastest checkout lane before the octagenarian pushing a cart with her walker beats us to it. When I say we are ruthless, we literally discard the entire book of Ruth and most of our theology to win the annual Publix hardcore shopper award. We’ve got trophies from the past nine years.
The Israelites, faced with ensuing Egyptians and the daunting Red Sea, were told to be still and move on. This is the opposite of “you snooze, you lose.” There is a tightrope to be walked between being still and moving on.
At Lifebridge, we’ve waited, tried to be still, and focused on Jesus for one year. Now we are moving on. We’ve remembered God, now we are taking steps forward and anticipating His enabling grace. We are taking care of our Jerusalem so that we can also be witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
If we don’t take care of our home base, calling people home to Jesus will be difficult. If we don’t love each other one at a time at Lifebridge, loving beyond will be deterred. If we don’t feed on the Word of God, we’ll not be able to feed others. If we don’t spur each other to serve, we’ll develop paralyzing selfishness. If we don’t make our connection to God strong through prayer and worship, it will be tough for Jesus to use us to connect others to Him.
You see how this works, right? It’s not a hyperactive religion of “you snooze, you lose,” but rather a be still and move on… with and by God’s grace.
This Sunday we move on at Lifebridge. We’re taking steps to restore Lifebridge as a place of beauty so that the beauty of the Gospel can shine brilliantly beyond. Our SERVE SUNDAY is this Sunday! We are driven by the Gospel, together… and together we will BE the church and not just GO, this Sunday.
MANY have signed up, but if you haven’t registered, you can do that right now by CLICKING HERE. REMEMBER, we need people to register INDIVIDUALLY so we can get an accurate count for our lunch.
I’m excited to see you this Sunday. Instead of jeans and tees, we might need jeans and sweatshirts as we plunge neck-deep into a chilly Serve Sunday. It all starts at 9 a.m. Lunch will be provided, and we’ll work til 3 p.m. Fellowship, prayer, encouragement, relationships, and worship will be our goals as we get a lot of great stuff done, together. Gospel-driven. Together. Let’s goooo!
Blessings!
Pastor alan
p.s. – Because of SERVE SUNDAY, would you consider giving your tithe online this week? (see link below) This would be incredibly helpful and enables us to move on. THANK YOU!