Well, It’s official. July 4th weekend is behind us and we are “slap-dab” in the middle of summer 2009! BBQs and beach trips (that’s “going to the coast” for the truly Baptist at heart), sandals and shorts (culottes for the slightly more spiritual) and a cooler full of ice cold Cheerwine (non-alcoholic of course ) all make these days the things that memories are made of.
I remember every spring at my Bible college, the president would give the last chapel message of the year and send us off into the summer with these words, “Always remember to whom you belong.”
Those words have gone with me wherever life has taken me since those days so many years ago. I have since thrown the laws of grammar to the wind and rephrased that statement. I now tell those I love, “remember who you belong to” ( something about ending a sentence with a preposition, or splitting an infinitive, or some similar dumb rule that keeps people from writing like they speak). Anyway, its not about the rules, its about the message. Live for Christ.
How many times do we place a rule on a behavior to mask the true identity of who we are? It’s something to think about, isn’t it?
We make the rules, obey the rules, impose the rules on others, and grin like an opossum eating briars when we are the only ones that keep the rules we make. Sometimes I think the rules do nothing more than give us the feeling of superiority over those who don’t hold to them.
Remember who you belong to. That’s a pretty good rule. It doesn’t tell us where to go, what to wear, or what to do when we get there. It doesn’t ask us to hide our behavior in the dark, but encourages us to walk in the light as he is in the light.
Enjoy life, remember who you belong to, and walk in the light as he is in the light. If you follow those rules, you’ll need no others.
Keith Kannenberg is senior pastor of Blackwelder Park Baptist Church.