AUGUST 4 "IS WORK A FOUR LETTER WORD IN THE CHURCH?"

 I am reading about this religious revival, a religious "awakening" something ....apparently every church yearns for, or so we say.  But you know what I noticed as I'm reading through Chronicles, especially today, I'm noticing it's allot of work and it's costly. And there are few that want to work and there are fewer that want to give. For all the people celebrating and having a great time in this "religious revival" there is also a group of people that are very tired, over worked and quite frankly, not really enjoying themselves or this wonderful idea of Josiah's.. It's allot of work, in verse 14 we read, "the priests had been busy from morning till night offering the burnt offerings..."  Now I have been in the Church and in Ministry long enough to know, that the priests were not rejoicing over this. If they are human like the people in our churches they were venting, saying things like, "next time Pastor, I mean...Josiah gets a wild idea to have revival, let him do the work himself and see how great an idea it is, why are we the only one's doing the work and everyone else is just eating and celebrating while we are busting our buns. This is ridiculous, next time I'm telling Pastor, I mean Josiah, I'm not helping. I'm exhausted, do you know how much work we have and we still have to clean up and everyone else is just going to go home, watch!"  And you know, they will just go home, they won't help and the bulk of the work will fall upon the shoulders of the few and if not careful, we can become bitter and very irritated in the midst of supposedly, "serving the Lord". Work is a four letter word to most people, most people by nature are lazy, but you would think, that in the church, work would not be a four letter word, after all, aren't we all a bunch of Christians filled with God's Spirit doing "the word of the Lord", And of course you know I'm being facetious.  Most church members are just wanted to enjoy the service, enjoy the event, enjoy the festivities and then go home. They don't know and don't care to know, how everything is getting done and who's doing what. Earlier in Chronicles we read that originally the celebration actually had to be delayed because there was not enough workers (priests)  to do the work. Then we read a chapter latter, that even the few that showed up to help, were not consecrated, as they should have been to perform the work (sacrifices) so in desperation, they bent the rules and said, "just go ahead and do the sacrifices anyway, this isn't the right way, but what choice have you left us". One of the most read blogs of the year was titled "Quite the Ministry" because that title struck a chord with many readers. Many Christians involved in Ministry in their churches are burnt out and ready to quit. They are tired of doing all the work, while others feel no compulsion, whatsoever to help. The call of the disciple is still and will always be, "to deny thyself, pick up your cross and follow me". The natural tendency is to be selfish and lazy, but we must fight that. The more that get involved the easier the load becomes and joy returns to that ministry. The joy of service comes back to that Christian; who once joined that ministry with great enthusiasm and thrilled to be involved. Every Sunday you sit in your church and watch how everything works, do you ever wonder, "how's everything working and who's making it work and is there anywhere that I could do to lighten the burden? Is there a reason these priests, with their own families to care for, were stuck offering sacrifices from morning 'till night? There is no justifiable reason other than the fact, that WORK is still a four letter word, even inside The Church of Jesus Christ". What can you do, to lighten the burden of the Priests, so that, they, who have families too, can go home at a decent hour and not work undue & unnecessary hours, that will eventually burn them out and then what? Then that individual quits the ministry and by doing so,  leaves fewer to carry the load; therefore putting more pressure on then, causing more to be burned out and it's a vicious cycle. Jesus said, "Pray for workers, for the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few". Jesus didn't say, Israelite are few, He didn't say, the Church members are few,  Jesus didn't say, "the Christians are few", Jesus said, "the workers are few" and how true that was back  in Josiah's day, how true that was back in Jesus' day and how true it is today, work is still a four letter word, even amongst God's people.