A Gas Station Attendant?

 A friend of mine wrote this: 

“Today, having been Sunday for me, I went to church, and the pastor said, ‘Some Christians tend to go to church and treat it the same as is we were filling up with petrol at a petrol station (or gas at a gas station). We go there solely to fill up.’ That is all my pastor said, so I have decided to continue it.

         Let me tell you a story: There once was a little gas station in a little town. Although this gas station was the only one in town, so the locals thought that this gas station was rather large. It had gas pumps, a car wash and a shop attendant that looked after the customers. On a busy day, the gas station would be lined up two or three cars at the pumps, and some people always took the time to thank and praise the man for his clean gas station. They would sit there and go on about how the car wash was great for getting your car clean because it actually had soap in it. Some other customers however, simply drove in, filled up their car with gas, all the while chatting to the friend nearby, and then when they went in to pay, hardly said a word to the attendant.

      

    The car wash was very useful for getting dirty cars clean again. No one wants to look at a dirty car, so when the gas station was not too busy, the man at the gas station would often go out and wash cars that were for sale next to the station.

    Now, here is the rather frightening bit: Which person are we? If we shed a bit more light, you might just catch a glimpse of this. Jesus is the gas station attendant. He owns the station, which is the church. The car wash is for new Christians or Christians that just need cleaning. The dirt is sin, and only Jesus can wash away our sin, and so, we take our car to be washed by the gas station attendant. People come from all over the town to ‘get filled up’ but is that all we do when we go to church. Is church all about ‘filling up?’ Do we go to church and hardly talk to God? Or are we the people that go to church only for socialisation. No one may never know why you go to church, but God does, and it is between you and Him that matters.”

                                                                                                                              ~Ric Alden