“Among People Who Love Our Lord”

Sunday, June 03, 2018

I have been especially encouraged about the condition of God’s church this week. I hope that you have too.

My family and I spent the first part of the week with a church in Cleveland, TN (near Chattanooga). They asked me to preach a series six lessons from Sunday to Wednesday. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, they asked if we could meet an hour earlier and have two lessons each of those nights. And it was such a powerfully encouraging thing, because I knew they were not interested in hearing me—they were there to hear the Word.

Those four days were also characterized by several long conversations that went deep into questions about who God is, group behavior of God’s people, and various ones’ personal walks with Christ. In many ways, we spent more time in the word while out of the pulpit than we did while I was in it. And again, the encouragement that brought was powerful, because we saw God’s people hungering to know him. And when they saw truth in his word, they rejoiced in that.

And all of it reminded us of our immense gratitude for our Eastland church family. Because the mentality behind those experiences is the same mentality we experience here all the time: a hunger to know God’s ways and genuine joy in learning them. We found ourselves frequently talking about how much we love you—our church family—and how much we look forward to coming home every time that we’re away. And it just reminded us what a joyful thing it is to be among people—both away and at home—who love our Lord.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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