So here I am sitting in my home office on Saturday night thinking , praying, preparing about what tomorrow will hold. Excitement building within me for an awesome church gathering as we celebrate the birth of our Saviour Jesus and the life He has given us. My excitement seems to be growing as the move of God amongst us is obvious and He is up to something remarkable.
What is your anticipation of church? For some they reluctantly attend because it is something forced upon them and seems to be pointless. For others they will be walking into a war zone as they face those whom they would rather pack up and go and “pollute” someone else’s church. For others they prepare themselves to consume, take, take, take and look for others to serve them. Then there are those who will go for the second time this year to a Christmas service where they go through the annual rituals of satisfying tradition. But for many others they yearn to be in God’s House. They can be described as Jesus was in that, ““Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:17)
What I am seeing is a move of God that gives room for the Holy Spirit to move. It is fuelled by a humble realisation that if God removes His hand we are doomed to fail. May we never be the church that continues on regardless of whether or not God is with us. What would really happen to us if the Holy Spirit removed His hand from us? Would we continue on without sensing any difference?
My prayer is that as you attend the church God has added you to you may approach it with the attitude He blesses. An attitude that eagerly expects His presence. An attitude that seeks to be generous in worship, encouragement, giving and unity. But above all an attitude that wants to give Jesus pleasure when He beholds the joy and love of His people. To sense His smile and to seek His face is the attitude that will get you up in the morning excited because it is the Lord’s Day!
Bring it on! I am ready! I can’t wait to get to God’s House.
This past Sunday at CityWest Church I had the honour of baptising three amazing women. It never ceases to capture me how Jesus works in a person’s life as each one of them had their own unique story to tell. I looked at them and I could not help but praise Jesus for breathing new life into them and adopting them into God’s Family.
It was a day that started early and ended late but the tiredness and exhaustion I felt as I hit my pillow at about 11pm cannot be compared to anything else in this world. The atmosphere was thick with excitement and anticipation that God was doing something beautiful. For me it was a highly memorable moment as it felt like the visible evidence of us coming through a difficult and trying season. As a church it reminded us once again as to why we are here and brought focus onto our all-important mission. The mission/cause of Jesus Christ fuels us like nothing else and seeing Linda, Leah and Ruth get baptised highlighted the fruitfulness God longs to see in His churches around the world. Sure we have not got it right many times and often it seemed like we were riding an out of control car without the capacity to steer, but through it all Jesus has remained faithful.
As I preached about Jesus and had a brag-fest about how magnificent He is, my heart was stirred about the identity we all must deal with. For some their identity is found in what they do. For example, “I am a factory worker”, or “I am a property investor”. For others their identity is shaped by circumstances. For example, “I am a divorcee”, or “I am disabled”, or “I am unemployed”. These words might seem insignificant but when spoken from the heart reveal an identity that is challenging to reform. But here’s the good news…with Jesus our identity is corrected and brought into alignment to reflect who HE is rather than who we think we are. This is the idea I conveyed to the three women who were baptised and to the church as a whole. We now have our identity founded and secured IN Jesus so that when God the Father looks at us He sees His Son. WOW!! What grace!
Another beautiful moment was having the children of the church (and there are heaps!) to also witness the evidence of new birth in Jesus. At one point I was about to baptise Ruth when her little boy Jackson yelled out, “My mummy doesn’t like water”. Well this of course sent the crowd into a laughing fit and it reflected the joy of the day. Just on a side note, Ruth’s daughter Dayna went to school the next day and announced to her class, “Yesterday my mum had a bath on the stage at church with all her clothes on.” Um, how do you explain that one? I guess they have some explaining to do.
What an awesome day! Celebrations like this just serve to remind me about my heart to see people’s identity crisis’ be transformed under the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. I get such overwhelming joy when I see someone once lost be found by Jesus that it ruins me. I get wrecked, ruined and messed-up when I see a person fall at the feet of Jesus and rise up a brand new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). It ruins me because every other thrill seems to fade into nothing and the work of Jesus consumes me. May we all live for that cause and be obedient as The Sent Ones. Reach them for Jesus!
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