October, 2006
by Pastor Dave Speicher

The last few weeks I have preached from Hebrews 10:19-24 on the theme “Encourage One Another”. As we value one another we realize the importance of letting each other know that we love and appreciate one another. We encourage one another as we cheer each other on in success and as we care for and pray for one another when life hits us hard with difficulties. Last Sunday I began to preach from Romans 12:9-16 on the theme of “The Building of a Caring Church” and we will be discovering the “Be’s” of a caring church, the first of which is “Be Sincere In Your Love”. These “Be’s” become the building blocks we must be sure are in place for us to even more effectively fulfill OUR MISSION “…to demonstrate God’s love to ALL people, leading them to embrace Jesus Christ, and helping them grow to maturity in Him.”

Recently someone emailed me a vivid illustration of how important it is to look for the hidden treasure in other people and encourage them and build them up in the context of being a caring church that serves and ministers to each other AND OTHERS. The story is entitled “CLAY BALLS” and goes like this:
A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake and then put them in the cave. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag with him out of the cave and as he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excitedly the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each one contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him…he had been on the beach a long time and had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands of dollars, but he had just thrown it away!

The point is this – that’s the way it is sometimes with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside and since it isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, we discount it. We may see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy, but we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person. There is a treasure in each one of us. If we take the time to get to know a person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem of who they are begins to shine and show through.

I hope and pray that we will not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships and relationships because the “gems” were hidden in bits of clay…the clay of our humanity. May God help us see the people around us as He sees them so we can encourage them and show them genuine, sincere, and Godly love. I LOVE and APPRECIATE each of you and thank God for the privilege of working with you as we keep planning for the future of building expansion and meaningful ministry to reach out to all who need God’s love and forgiveness. I look forward to seeing you each Sunday for a time of inspiring worship that honors God.