Pastor’s Page

             Do you enjoy a good cup of coffee?  Most people either love it or hate it.  I love it. I’m not even picky about my coffee, though I must admit that I have a hard time passing by a Dunkin’ Donuts without hitting the drive through!  I love everything about it… it’s smell…it’s taste…even that sound the coffee pot makes!  Those of you who love coffee know exactly what I mean.  It’s good stuff!   But the fact is: I did not always have such an affinity for coffee. I can remember as a young child sipping some of my dad’s dark coffee and thinking it was the most wretched stuff consumed by mankind!  For a long time I would not even go near the stuff. But in time, as I matured, I slowly began to acquire the taste for coffee.  After all, it IS an acquired taste!

As I was thinking about that acquired taste recently, I was reminded that there are many other “acquired tastes” in life, even for the believer. There are certain spiritual attitudes and actions that just seem so unnatural to our humanness and yet as those who know and love the Lord Jesus, we’re called to demonstrate those attitudes and actions as we, more and more, grow into the image of Christ.  The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:22-24, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Putting off the old self and putting on the new is part of the maturing process for believers… part of that “acquired taste” process.  The reality is, there are some tastes which are harder to acquire than others. For many Christians, a heart of servanthood does not come naturally, but rather it comes with a “maturing” of our Christian character as we continue the process of putting off the old and putting on the new.

Servanthood is a tough one for us, it seems to go against our human grain and yet we see so many vivid examples in the New Testament of the ways in which Jesus demonstrated that important virtue.  I think the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 2 are a great reminder for us as we seek to acquire the taste of servanthood.  He says there, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to  earth— even death on a cross!”  What a picture of servanthood.  That’s our standard…but the question remains:  What are you and I doing to acquire that taste?

 I know I have some work to do.  I think I’ll put down my coffee and get started!

Meeting at Grace E. C. Church
421 W. Main St.
Kutztown, Pa
Phone: 610-683-3340 mail box #4