The Church Mouse: Removing Roadblocks
The Church Mouse: Removing Roadblocks
“But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak.” – 1 Corinthians 8:9
I had the opportunity to travel to Weston WV to the ‘Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.’
I found the tour of place to be very interesting as I love history. I have been to Weston several times and have even driven by the Asylum when it was in operation. But I guess I never gave much more than a passing thought. It is sort of like you know something is there; but you do not think much about it.
I learned the construction of the Asylum was started in 1858 and was not finished until 23 years later in 1881. It was started by the state of Virginia and completed by the state of West Virginia. The cost, back then, was around 14 million dollars. The building has a long and interesting history with the Civil War and West Virginia becoming a state.
One interesting thing was that the state of Virginia wanted their money back from the state of West Virginia for the construction of the Asylum. Virginia tried for several years to get the money back, but only until Virginia would recognized West Virginia as a state that could happen.
So from 1885 until 1910 the state of Virginia sat around mostly complaining and wanting their money. They tried several times to sue West Virginia for the money. But the roadblock was that Virginia would not recognize West Virginia as a state. The Supreme Court ruled that you could not sue yourself for technically your own money.
Finally, in 1910 they recognized West Virginia as a state and the Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit to go through and West Virginia was ordered to pay the money back to Virginia.
This got me to thinking about some Christians and churches and how we sit around fussing, fuming, and fighting about roadblocks in our paths. We often try to fix our roadblocks ourselves therefore creating a much bigger mess. We seem to forget that God made a proclamation that set us free.
We do not want to recognize that we are not in control! We want to be in charge of everything and anything. That is a human nature or carnal thing. Satan loves it when he convinces us that we are in charge of our own destiny. We forget that Jesus is our shepherd and we are his sheep.
Oh, the time we waste pretending that we are all righteous and holy. When we just need to stand up and say.
“I am sinner!”
But “I am saved by grace.”
So let all get a committed to saying this each day.
“I am a child of God. I am saved by the blood of Jesus. Get thee behind me Satan!”
This way we can remove the roadblocks in our lives.
Prayer—“Father, God, help us to remember that we need to proclaim you as the center of our lives each day. Help us to put you first in all things we do and say. Help us to remember to thank you for loving us and saving us. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.
the Church Mouse
Work hard; Pray harder!
