This Is Serious

This is Serious

For those of you who do not have young children, let me introduce to you Ming Ming. She is the beautiful yellow duck pictured above in her fancy-shmancy green cape! HA!

She is one of the characters in a Nick Jr cartoon called Wonder Pets and just in case you have never seen the show one of her most repeated lines is "This.... is .....serious".

This is the exact same thing I said when I read Leviticus 10:1-10.

The first time I really read this story was just about this time last year. I still remember pausing after I read it, just to catch my breath.

You see, I have two children. Two very sweet, very cute children who are learning everyday what it means to obey their mama and daddy. I can not IMAGINE watching them die right before my very eyes in a blaze of fire. I can not imagine dying in a fire at all. I think that would be the worst way to die.

Unfortunately this is what happens in our churches on a regular basis. Take a minute and think about some of the people who were in your church this time last year but are not there this year. Is it because they got divorced? Are they in jail for a crime they committed (while attending your church)? Did one of their kids get kicked out of school because they tried to set it on fire?

What we do in our churches is not a game, it's serious. We have to be light, not only to the lost world, but to the people we stand beside on Sunday mornings.

Sometimes our "ministry" can feel like such a routine.

Get to church, do our thing, go home.

Get to church, do our thing, go home.

God has placed these people in our lives for a very specific reason. Read verse 10 again, "You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean". I look at Aaron as the founding father for all of us who are in the ministry today and I believe that God considers what we do on Sunday's, Wednesday's and every other day just as important as what He wanted Aaron to do with the Israelites.

Being able to witness real life change is an honor reserved for the truly committed. We have to take what we do seriously. Marriages are at stake, families are at stake and people's eternity are at stake.

It truly is a blessing when someone is allowed to minister. Take this blessing seriously in your own life and strive to live in such a way that people will stop, take notice and want the same God you serve in their life.