The Checkpoint of Communion

Every once in a while, I think it's good that we stop and think ... that we stop and think of the great price that was paid -- of what Christ went through for us. He didn't look forward to that at all.

He had a desire to eat the passover with his disciples. But towards the end of the passage we read [that] He pleaded with God that maybe ... maybe ... if there could be some other way. But He added to His prayer, "Not my will, but Thine be done."

There was no other way.

Sometimes life is not filled with alternatives. Sometimes it has one path that's the right path.

We know the right path is first of all that we repent and be converted and then that we stay on the path. And God knew how weak we are and He knew that Satan would come at us in a variety of ways. Oh, he sometimes comes with a huge thing that's so obviously wrong that it's not even tough to overcome. But he also sometimes comes with something that just seems so little, just merely a part of a degree. And if he can get us to veer just a little bit... we're probably still OK.

And if you're driving a car (and I don't know how wide roads are, but i know they're a lot wider than a car is) and if we veer just a little bit, for quite a while we're OK. But if we veer just a little bit for too long, what happens? Pretty soon we find ourselves off the road and in trouble.

If there were no checkpoints in our life, if we repented, we were baptized, we're converted, we're serving God, and if there were no checkpoints from there on and we got just a little bit off the track, and we traveled the rest of our life just a little bit off the track, what would happen? When would we drop off the road?

But God provided for us a checkpoint - a special checkpoint - when we can stop and we can pause and we can really take a look at our life and make that little bit of adjustment and get back on the road.
--Sermon Excerpt: Elder Bro. A.S.