Alive!
"I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!"Sometimes the best thing about a three-day weekend is that you get an extra day off of work. The best thing about this three-day weekend was that God revealed Himself in mighty ways to be alive and powerfully at work in His church. He showed His love and forgiveness in ways impossible to miss and made the path to doing His will clear and well-defined. So that's even better than just getting an extra day...right?
I struggle sometimes in Blogland with knowing just how much to reveal. There are certain things that just aren't appropriate to share, no matter how excited you are about them. So I proceed with caution.
Saturday was amazing! God blessed many of us through a brother's words of confession. God helped both Lisa and I with the words that we shared. And He brought us even closer to the body of Christ. It was a very long day, but one where the Spirit was visible in the way He worked in our lives and the lives of people we love dearly.
Sunday was amazing! When you're not feeling well, it's even easier to feel God's strong hands holding you up. My message on abundant service was bracketed by song and praise, by a great presentation to our children by DCB, and by the elders' commissioning of a group of people who are prepared to serve abundantly on a mission trip to Ukraine.
Monday was amazing! The College Church has had a strained relationship with her sister church for quite some time. Nasty things have been said on both sides and, rather than focusing on our status as brothers and sisters in Christ, many people have chosen instead to focus on our differences of opinion and translation. People who have been hurt by what is said have lashed back with their own words. Wounds have grown deeper as years have gone by.
Now, tell me if this is a "Spirit Thing." The (fairly) new minister of this church visited Brandon's ZOE blog. He tracked back one of my comments to this blog. Then he e-mailed me to see if we could have lunch and talk about ministry in Fresno. We met yesterday and talked about the community. But, more importantly, we talked about the past between our churches. Here was a man asking to hear our side! We acknowledged that there may be little we could do to heal most of the wounds. But we pledged to do a couple of things. We both promised to nip in the bud any negative talk we heard about each other's church. We decided that while we couldn't do a lot to heal old wounds (acknowleding that GOD can), we could try to keep new hurts from happening. And we promised to pray for each other's church.
I plan to ask many College folks to start praying for this other church. It's hard to say or do nasty things to people for whom you are praying. I have no idea where this might lead. But, if nothing else, I've met a new brother who, it should be mentioned, is a baseball fan. We hope to continue to meet occasionally and there is the distinct possibility of a summer trip to catch a game.
God is good. God is alive. God wants the best for His children. God can and will be glorified if we remember what is truly important. I'm praising Him today for an incredible weekend.
posted by Thurman8er @ 8:58 AM
3 Comments:
I just returned home from Bible study, and the verse from Revelation that you opened with was one of the key verses we studied. It reminded me, like Luther's Small Catechism, that we are to fear and love God above all else. I firmly believe that if we keep that thought in mind as we pray with and worship with the body of Christ, wounds can and will be healed. Although I don't know the church you're talking about, God will. I'll keep the two churches in my prayers.
God is working through you and this new minister, and I feel great things will be done to God's glory because of this! Praise God! Love and forgiveness is everything...imagine the possibilities if all brothers and sisters focused on this. Isn't it amazing what God can do when he takes us "out of the box"...and we LET him?
This is good news.
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