Have you ever looked at one of those pieces of art that play tricks on your eyes? You know, you can look at it one way and then turn it and see something totally different. Pretty freaky huh? I think that can happen to us sometimes when we read through the pages of scripture. We can read something that perhaps we have read before a few times and out of nowhere see something totally different. This can happen for a few different reasons. One, the Holy Spirit can bring something to your attention and enable you to digest scripture from a different perspective or you can read a different version of scripture and see different things via different linguistic styles. This definitely happened to me when I read through 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. I have read this passage before, in fact many times before. I have always understood the mentality that you should work hard for a living and provide for your family and not be lazy. Reading this passage through the lens of your household makes perfect sense, right? But what if you read it through the lens of the church. Yowzer! It puts new meaning to the phrase “if you don’t work you don’t eat.” Have you ever felt this way or ever heard someone say, “I don’t feel like I am getting fed at this church”? My question to you would be how have you invested in that church? Because this is saying if you don’t work first then you do not eat. Or how about the next passage that reads “now we are getting reports that a bunch of lazy good for nothings are taking advantage of you. This must not be tolerated!” Jeepers! I don’t know about you but I want to make sure that at no time do I fit the category of a lazy good for nothing in the church. I don’t want to simply take up real estate in the church and spend my time spectating. On the contrary, I want to invest my time for which Christ Jesus invested His entire life for and remain a participator in this organism that we call church. Where are you on this scale? What does your church experience look like? Sitting and standing with an occasional head bow? Or are you investing and sweating to share the message of hope? If it’s not the latter than do something now to change it. Sign up for a ministry this weekend at your local church. Find an area of need in your community and meet it. Get creative but don’t get lazy. Time is ticking!