Reading: Mark 6:35-44 New International Version (NIV)
We thank God for Sunday’s – this is the time we carve out of our lives and dedicate to God focusing on His love for us and others. We open our hearts for instruction, guidance, correction and inspiration in order to continue discharging the great commission. We take time to reflect on what He has done for this results in praise and thanks giving and as we do this , the Bible says, He inhabit’ s our praises. An attitude of praise and thank giving will always result in worship and adoration and this is what God uses to transform our inner lives. A heart that is broken in worship is fertile ground for God’s master workmanship. He will use such a moment to uproot that which is not bearing fruit in your live, plant new seeds and till the seeds that He desires grow in your heart. Achieving true worship in a service. Worship is powerful and should be experience we seek after today as we head to our churches. When a church service is reduced to a people’s gathering, we miss out on the transforming power that should be on our lives every time we meet for church or fellowship. This is the danger that we have to keep being aware of especially those of us that have responsibility for running church services and fellowship meetings. The focus has to be on us having a unique worship experience during every service. Once people connect and get impacted by God, the rest of the things flow naturally – growth, giving, commitment, faithfulness and love for one another. There is never a heart that connects with God in true worship that remains focused on self – generosity flows out of a worshiping heart.
In Acts 2:42-47 : They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
The foundation of a growing ministry or church will always be true worship. That is why we are dedicating these 30-days to prayer and self-reflection as a ministry. We are asking God to prepare and touch the hearts of each one of us – to create a broken heart yielded to His purposes. We are asking that He repairs every area of our lives where we have fallen short and focused on ourselves as opposed to Him. Where we have made ourselves and our lives priority over His kingdom. May this be our prayer today.
Coming back to our text, you will recall yesterday we saw the importance of taking responsibility and avoiding the tendency to push problems to other people to solve. By doing so, you miss an opportunity for God’s power to be manifested in the situation. For us to effectively do this, we need to fully believe that God will not allow a situation in your life that He has no solution for. Salvation is about surrendering our lives to God – this means we no longer run our lives but God rules. We follow His leading and direction through application and obedience to His word. If this is the case, then just like the word of God instructs us in Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose – nothing comes to our lives that God is not aware of. We therefore need to settle this early – so that even the enemy the devil knows that this issue is sorted out. So the key here is living a totally surrendered life – where we take no decision on our own. Now I am not in any way saying that we stop thinking – No – I am saying that we need to reach that point of total dependency on God’s word and direction.
This calls for a disciplined Christian lifestyle – because the human nature in us likes to rule over us and we have to continuously fight to keep the Holy Spirit of God that lives in us in full control.
The decision to go to a remote place and stay very late was not made by the disciples – this was Jesu’s ministry. Instead of going to the person that planned the meeting and asking what He had in mind with respect to food for the people, they started coming with logical solutions. Do you know this happens a lot to us – when we are faced with difficult situations, we are quick to move to look for logical solutions instead of asking the Master – what was your plan for me? How would you wish me to handle this situation? I need a job – God how would you like me to go about looking for one? We have this family issue and conflict – God – how would you wish me to handle this?. In fact this is the same situation we are as a ministry – we have a big construction project going on, we don’t have enough financial resources in our hands, but one thing we are sure – this is God’s work and perfect will and for this reason, we know He is going to provide. Now we don’t know who He is going to use and how – but one thing we are rock sure – it will come to pass. People will walk through the iron gates of CREM Centre and have a special time in worship to God and many lives will be changed there. Why are we so confident – because He has never failed us? Just as He has been with us in the past, He will be with us – if only we walk in faithfulness and obedience. Just like He has done in the past, God will put all resources required into our hands so that they can be channeled to His work. So this should be an exciting time for all of us and believe we should be busy cleaning our individual pipes as we wait for God’s resources to be channeled through us. So get ready! Clean the pipe, remove every blockage, repair any leakage, seal every hole, make yourself available – you will handle more resources than you have ever done in your life. Because God’s work is big – He has to give us big things through the pipe. If it means salary increment, He will do. If it means sending more customers to your business – He will do. Get ready and live in expectation. Say a big Amen if you believe this.
0 Comments