Tag: Pastor’s Desk

S t r e t c h i n g  Exercise

Jesus said you can’t put new wine into old wineskins.  Wine was kept in animal skins. Old wineskins dry up and lose their elasticity, their ability to stretch, grow, change and expand in God’s capacity. You have to expand your capacity to increase your influence for God.

 Stretch Forth – action – stretching has the tendency to cause pain. When you stretch you are working muscles. So in order for us to stretch ourselves to what God asks us to become, it’s going to require some pain on our part both as a church and personally as well. Do you know how you make a muscle stronger? You have to tear down some of the cells by over-committing your muscle. It’s time to take a healthy look at the amount of spiritual commitment you are currently undertaking. Faith, Prayer and Fasting – we must crucify the flesh and sometimes that commitment is painful because the flesh does not want to participate.  We reap what we sow, your return will only be as great as your investment. When you enlarge your capacity for God by stretching your investment of faith, prayer, and fasting – God will expand your influence for what He wants to do in and thru your life as an individual and as a church!  Come on let’s do some  s t r e t c h i n g  exercises!!

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2012May6[1]

Certainly we are people who love the moving of God’s Spirit, and rightly so.  A formless, lifeless, dark world needs an encounter with the glory of the Lord.  But a lesson to be learned from this passage is that one can be exposed to the moving of the Spirit and still be extremely void and empty.  For a life to be truly and permanently changed requires the introduction of creative energy through the Word of God, and preaching is the method God chose to accomplish just such a change.

There is a danger of being so proud of the dynamics of the Spirit we enjoy and of what we regularly feel in our services that we equate “goose bumps” with substantive change in our lives.  The measure of the effect of the gospel in our lives is not did we feel Him, for anything and anyone can feel Him when He moves.  The questions to be asked as we leave each service are, “Did the Word of God change anything in me?  Did His voice speak to me?  Did preaching and my response to it do a creative work in me?”

May God help us fall in love with and remain in love with preaching. We must be a worshiping church, but not at the expense of preaching. It is good that we are a musical church, but not at the expense of preaching. We’d better be a friendly church, but that doesn’t replace preaching. We must be visited by the supernatural, but the moving of His Spirit and the demonstration of His might should only lead us to and confirm the truth of preaching. Such is the testimony of the apostles: “They went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen” (Mark 16:20). How can one establish the value of preaching? What is the estimate of having a man of God who will fulfill the instruction of Ezekiel: “They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean: (Ezekiel 44:23)? What is the worth of a voice that will declare the Word of God? What is the significance of preaching? I can please God only with faith, and faith comes by hearing His Word. (See Hebrews 11:6; Romans 10:17.) Preaching convicts sinners, preaching heals the wounded, preaching brings hope, and preaching builds the church. And yet amazingly much of the Christian world is turning its back on it.

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2012Apr15

 

The Meaning of Easter

In Old Testament times, the priest would bring bulls, goats or a spotless lamb without any blemishes to be sacrificed as a sin offering for himself and for the people. The blood would purify and make atonement (forgive, make amends) for their sins. This was  the  old order of atonement. When Jesus came, He was  a representation of the   sacrificial  lamb  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world. He  was  the final sacrifice. We  no  longer have to  sacrifice  animals  to make  atonement  for our sins. Jesus has done this once and for all. It’s His blood that cleanses us from all sin. He was crucified on the cross (the form of execution in those days). The sin of  the world  was  upon Him, yet He was without sin  and  blameless. He bore it all. This  is  why  Jesus  is  referred  to  as  the  ‘Lamb of God’.   He  was  bodily resurrected  (came back to life)  on  the third day. He appeared to many – eating and drinking with them. He appeared to them for 40 days, then ascended (went up to) Heaven. Acts 1: 1-11.

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2012Apr8