This week we started our Stewardship series entitled "Renewing Your Vows". How serious do we take our vows? You know God gave us his vows; but they were called "Covenants". These were promises that God made, that he was incapable of breaking. If "I Am Who I Am" is the case then "My Word Is, Is My Word" rings true as well. God has made us promises so I wander why it is so easy for us to renig on our promises and vows to him? I think that this is attributed to the society that we live in. I had a recent retired business man tell me that he had to get out of the business world because business had changed so much. He said, that when someone used to give you their word it meant that they would follow through. He said that now days no one keeps a promise. I think the same could be said as to why the divorce rate is so high. We took vows for richer or poorer, for better are worse, through sickness and in health, but we really only meant the for richer, for better, and through health aspects. The amazing thing about Wedding Vows is that they are taken in front of God and they are not just something that is part of a ceremony. The vow is a promise with a twist, the twist being that we will do it with Gods help. That is why they are taken in front of God and the whole congregation so that the congregation can also step in and intervene with martial problems.
So if we can not live up to our marital vows then how do we expect to keep the vows we made to uphold our church vows. We are living in a tight economy but it is tight mostly because we have failed to give God our "first fruits". We are always giving God what is left over. This means that we have filled our lives with Idols that are above God. But it is not only our money that we are short changing it is our prayers. We only pray when we need something. We pray like we are writing Santa a wish list. Our prayers surround things that we want and need. the next is our presence. I am amazed at the excuses that I hear when I bump into someone that I have not seen at church for a while. I recently, bumped into someone and asked them about their irregular attendance at church. They gave me a laundry list of excuses. I thought to myself I am glad that God did make excuses. Once again our excuses are no more than "Idols" to God. The thought is why bother with church when there are other options that seem more fun. In essence we are giving God second fruits with our presence. Then there are gifts given to make a living and earn for our family but are rarely given back to God to further the kingdom. That is why they are called God given talents. The same can be said of our service. We may do it out of guilt but rarely if it interferes with any of our scheduled events. We spend our lives scheduling around all the things that we want to do. I can only imagine how fulfilled we would be if we lived out our vows. I hope that through this series we will come to understand how we can take our vows more seriously. In doing so we will strenght not only our realtionship with God but with our family.