The palace of ugly couches

There is a place you can go to see styles of the previous decades couches.

Where is this majestic place?

The youth group rooms at Churches around the country.

Some reason why when people get new furniture they have to get rid of their old stuff.

At this point it is usually way out of date and you couldn't sell it more or less give it away.

So what do we do with this?

We put it in our youth group room at our Church.

They will be glad to have it right?

I have seen some of the sickest disgusting pieces of furniture in youth group rooms.

I have seen a lazy boy that was brown but had a disgusting black around where the back of the head had been.

I said to a group at our Church, "This is disgusting, why would somebody put this in the youth room, it's sick. I don't want to put my head against it."

At this point one of the boys said, "That sick….Wait a sec. I think that was my dad's chair. Yep, that was my dad's chair."

I told the kid, man we need to have a talk with your dad about this chair or at least what he puts in his hair.

Most of the time, this furniture smelled bad, was broken and if put along the side of the road with a free sign on it, would be there a while.

Why is it we sometimes offer our junk to God rather than our best?

This is what the people were doing to God in the time of the prophet Malachi. Listen to the words in verse 7-8 of chapter 1…

"You place defiled food on my altar.

"But you ask, "How have we defiled you?

"By saying that the Lord's table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the Lord Almighty."

The people were told to give God their best and yet they didn't. They gave him some of their worst.

What would have happened to the people if they gave the same to the governor?

Do you think he would have stood for this?

Yet just like the people then, we don't always give God our best.

We sing the same songs in worship because they are the songs we know and we don't want to learn new songs because it would take time to learn them.

We know people going through struggles that we could help, but instead we answer them, "I'll pray for you."

Most of the time we even forget to do that.

Then we have the audacity to say the world's getting worse by the day, we need to pray for Christian values to be in the world again.

We need to pray for the president because his view on abortion differs from ours.

We say every life matters, but do nothing to help the ones that are already here and struggling.

This past week I read an article in the Terre Haute Tribune Star about how campus ministries from all over the Midwest came to Terre Haute to fix the damage the flood caused last year. We are in an area that is still affected from a natural disaster that happened last year.

Yet when we think of mission trips, we spend/fundraise huge amounts of money to go to Haiti, Dominican, Africa, all while people are suffering in our own towns and cities.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in mission trips all over the world, but I believe according to Acts 1:8 we were called to serve where we are at first.

Then we wonder why our community is getting less and less Christian.

Or how "This" generation is a generation of failures.

Or that people think that Christians are hypocrites and turn their backs on faith.

Giving our best to God is more than money or donating things to the Church.

It's how we live our lives.

Often times, I am the guiltiest one of them all.

I am selfish, want things my way and if it's not done my way I am not happy with it.

We need to change if Christ is going to reach this generation.

Malachi called for us to give our best, do you think you are giving God your best?

I know I haven't, but I am will to change.

While you can't do it all in a day, focus on one thing to make better.

 

"To change the world,

Start with one step,

And how ever small

First step is hardest of all."

-You Might Die Trying by Dave Matthews Band

 

The kingdom of God is all around us. Let's make an attempt to start helping the kingdom of God starting where we are at.

Have a great day.