Membership...Not Expired! Hurry! Act now before your membership expires! Maybe you also get notifications like this in your email or on your phone. There's an urgency to act so you don't lose your membership. And this has me thinking about membership in the church. I remember several years ago having a kindergartner walk up to me after morning Chapel and ask, “How do I become part of God's family?” How did you and I become a member of God's family? It's not unlike asking the question of how you become a member of any family. We are all born into families...and some of us have had the privilege of also being adopted into families (formally and informally). For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12 Just as in a family, members may share similarities and yet they are distinct from one another. I may look like my father, but I am not my father...or my mother or my brother or my sister. And still, somehow we are linked and tied together. In the same way, as God's people we are part of the same family... The apostle Paul would say that we are all part of one body. And at the same time, while we are individually members of that one body sharing some commonalities, we also are distinct…with gifts differing from each other. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6) For us as Christians, we become members of Christ’s body (His family) formally through baptism by which we are born into a new life. In some mysterious way we share in both Christ’s death and his resurrection. And we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit: “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Quite remarkable! Forever! Your membership at Costco, or Sam’s club, the golf course, the airline, may very well expire. Your membership in the body of Christ never will! Blessings,
Matthew+ God, I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen. | 
