What’s Next?
Letters to a State | Volume 3, No. 3
Apple Corporation is one of the largest and most well-known companies in the world.
Their very first product was a computer – the Apple 1, which was released for sale on September 30, 1977. My first purchase of an Apple product was six years later and six computer models later – the Apple IIe, along with an Apple Dot Matrix Printer.
Since that September 30, 1977 release date, there have been dozens of products offered for sale and hundreds of updates and models released.
For example, I currently own an iPhone 11 Pro which I purchased in 2020.
I am so old-fashioned and antiquated. There’s been six new iPhone models produced since then. (Want to bet that there’s another one coming?)
Our economy thrives on our desire for obtaining the next thing. There is an insatiable hunger and passion in the human physic for the next thing.
But God also has next things.
You remember the account of the widow of Zarephath and how God worked a miracle for her, causing her barrel of flour and jar of oil to not run out during a prolonged drought and famine. But the miracle was not forever. Elijah declared: “The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.” 1 Kings 17:14
until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.
1 Kings 17:14
As good as the homemade biscuits were, God had other things for the widow and God has other things for us.
Let me ask you…
What’s God’s next thing for you?
Your church?
Our State?
You know why I am still hanging on to my iPhone 11 model even though I am six models behind? Its really simple, I know how to use the model I currently own and I don’t want to go through the headache of learning how to use the new one.
I’m comfortable with what I’ve got.
It works for what I want.
But that’s the danger – “What I want.”
That’s okay with phones, but souls are not phones. And churches are not meant to stagnate and become obsolete simply existing to catered to our wishes and desires.
We must have something to say to our day. Jesus assigned us a mission; we are to go, adapt, progress, infiltrate like salt, shine forth like light.
I receive many good reports across our state of how God is providing for which I am very thankful. But remember, there is a next thing. Don’t get comfortable. Don’t coast. Being debt free is not the goal. Paying the bills is not the goal. Having enough is not the goal.
We have a mission, we have a cause, God’s got a next thing for our lives and our churches and for our times.
The end is coming. God has more than an upgrade planned, there will be a new heaven and new earth and old things will pass away. And to not be prepared, to not be ready, to miss it will be the calamity of calamities, the horror of horrors, and the tragedy of tragedies.
My dear friends and fellow ministers, we have a job to do. We must keep Running2Win for the Gospel’s Sake. There’s too much at stake to settle for anything less, as comfortable and familiar as it may be.
Illinois Church of God, what is God’s next thing for us?
David L. Kemp
