Home Cell Guide (Sunday 28th July 2019)
Praise God Brethren! Last week The Rt. Rev. Nathan Ahimbisibwe of South Ankole Diocese as the Chief Missioner of the Mission Week preached on the topic: Come let us return to the Lord drawing Biblical references from Hosea 6:1-3 and Luke 10:13-16. God was using Hosea’s marriage to Gomer [the prostitute], to illustrate on how far the Children of Israel had departed from the Lord, [Hos. 4:1-3] and even though He wounded them, He loved them to the extent of restoring them, healing and binding their wounds. Therefore, the situation the children of Israel were going through in being rebellious and far from God isn’t any different from ours today thus, the call for us to repent and return to the Lord. And it is on this note that Bishop Ahimbisibwe described how majority of the Christians today are living as submarine Christians. He described a submarine as a big ship that goes underneath the water for one or two weeks, measures its distance and it comes up and if there’s still some distance to cover it then goes back down until it reaches its destination.
Likewise, today we have submarine Christians of the sort namely;
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- The first category is those who only come to Church on Christmas and Easter after that they submarine and are likely to appear again on funerals and weddings.
- The second category, are those that faithfully come on Sundays but submarine from Monday to Saturday and again appear on Sunday. These tend to appear much disciplined, they participate in raising holy hands and even match forward to receive Holy Communion but after Sunday you can never tell whether they are Christians because they behave contrary to what they do on Sunday.
- The third, are those like Politicians who only appear before and during elections and after they submarine from their electorates. Politicians need to repent too and learn to serve their people and God who raises leaders.
- He cautioned the congregants to stop following Jesus at a distance like Peter who did and later denied him but rather come closer to Jesus Christ and He will come closer to you for He will surely forgive your sins. [Luke 22:54-62].
- There will be a time when you submarine and crush, but the Lord who is slow to anger and abounding in love is commanding us today to repent and return to him.
- He further encouraged all Christians to think, work hard and be creative in utilizing their God given gifts so as to be effective at their Work places, Nation, Church, and Economy and not to submarine by being greedy and corrupt. He urged both the rich and the poor to repent and come back to the Lord and in so doing the Lord will restore their lives, Name, Family, Children, Work places and Nation.
He called upon the Christians not to submarine in any aspect of their lives but to repent and return to God so as to be fruitful in every aspect of their lives.
Guidelines and Questions
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- As an individual, family, work place, Church and Nation, where have you been submarine.
- How can we address the tendency of being a submarine Christian?
- Prayerfully Surrender every aspect of being a submarine Christian and choose to return to the Lord.
Rev. Patrick Kamara
Priest in Charge: Home Cell and Pastoral Care
0772482433/0754 482433 /0753922448