If anyone causes one of these little ones-those who believe in me-to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone tied around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.  Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble!  Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!  Matthew 18:6-7  NIV

Yesterday we talked a little bit about sinful stumbling blocks.  The Bible is very clear about being harsh on those that  put stumbling blocks in the way of the believer.  As a matter of fact, the verses after our scripture passage even warn us against causing ourselves to stumble by telling us that if our own foot or hand cause us to stumble that we should cut it off and throw it in the fire.  It tells us that if our eye causes us to stumble that we should gouge it out.  It actually says that we are better off to enter into our eternal life with one foot, hand or eye than to be thrown into the fire of hell.   We all have our stumbling blocks.  We all have things in our life that we fight against.

But I would never want to be a stumbling block to another Christian.  I believe that when we do this, we are headed for trouble on the day of judgement.  As I have mentioned before, we started a new church a year ago.  We went to the meeting a couple days ago and was voted into beginning the process of becoming full fledged members of our local Baptist association.   was happy about that and thankful for all those that supported us, but I was saddened by the fact that a handful of people, including two pastors, voted against us.  I was saddened not for our church.  We are growing and being blessed and spreading God’s word.  I was saddened by the fact that people would oppose a new church.  People who are fellow believers.  I was saddened by the fact that there were those there that clearly wanted to put stumbling blocks up for our church.

I am not telling you these things to point fingers of blame, I am telling you these things to request prayer for anyone that causes anyone else to stumble or at least tries to cause someone else to stumble.   The saddest part of this is that I believe that there are people who do their best to put up stumbling blocks who honestly believe they are doing God’s will.  Pray for those that are being deceived.  It is very easy for us to be deceived if we are not careful.

We are doing our best to get God’s word out into our community.  We are doing our best to show God’s love in our community.  We encourage others to join us in this process.  Wouldn’t it be great to work together to have an area wide revival?  Wouldn’t it be great to have 10-15 churches come together to try to win lost souls to Christ?

Galatians 6:9 tells us that we should not grow weary in doing good for in due time we will reap a harvest.  We are going to keep on keeping on. We need revival in our communities.  We need to see lost souls turn to Christs.  You want to reduce the crime rate in your neighborhood?  Bring more people into a relationship with Jesus Christ.  You want to see a reduction in people suffering from substance abuse?  Reach out to the lost and hurting.  We need to be working together, not against each other.

I strongly encourage our area churches to grow with us.  In Acts 2:42-47 we are given a beautiful description of the first church.  Verse 44 tells us that All the believers were together and had everything in common.  What this means is that they were all focused on one common goal and that is winning others to Christ.  They were sharing their wealth and sharing God’s love with fellow believers.  They were coming together to praise God.

Last night we had our business meeting at our church.  I used to shy away from these meetings because at our old church they were often contentious.  I have seen people spend 45 minutes debating on whether or not we were going to spend 150.00 on a new printer.  These same people didn’t bat an eye at spending 50,000 on updating our fellowship hall.  Hmm, it makes you wonder.  But at our meeting last night we laughed and fellowshipped and came together to get things done.  We are filling our fall calendar with outreaches and get togethers so that we can do as the first church did in Acts 42:2 by devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching, the fellowship and the breaking of bread together and to prayer.

My friend we are in the end times.  This is the time for believers to join together.  There is strength and safety in numbers.  United we stand, divided we fall.  We also owe it to those in our community to see unity in the churches and not fighting and backbiting. Today, I strongly encourage you to remove any stumbling block that you are putting up for yourself or a fellow believer.  The Bible tells us that God will deal harshly with those that put up stumbling blocks for fellow Christians.  Don’t fall into that trap.  I pray that we can all work together to lift each other up in these last days.

Have a great day!