Neal spoke about our position in Christ and the confirmation of our ministry.
He looked at New Years Resolutions and how the don’t really work! Most people last five days with their new years resolutions before they break them and the classic example is of gym membership! 65% of new gym memberships are never used and 10% drop out within three months and another 10 by six months! We looked at how as Christians we can get caught up in making resolutions to read our bible more or pray more and even get up earlier each day to achieve those things! More often than not we fail and then give the enemy a stick to beat us with by telling us how useless we are and what did we expect anyway! Reading our bible more and praying more should not come out of a rule or regulation but rather out of relationship – if you love someone you want to spend time with them!
I felt this Year rather than looking at what we can do for God – How about what God can do for us and I felt particularly two areas that God wanted to speak into
1. Our position in Christ and the security that brings to us in our daily life.
2. To confirm our mission and ministry again for the New Year.
The scriptures we looked at today were from Isaiah 62 vs 4-5, Isaiah 42 vs 6-7 and Isaiah 59 vs 15-17
We looked at what God has done for us in saving us and bringing salvation to us and particularly with reference to God`s heart for us in that he declares “ My Delight is in you” and “God rejoices over you”
We looked at our mission and how God has given us his mission “To seek and save the lost” – we are to be a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free prisoners, to bring light into darkness and captives to freedom. Notice how positive all these things are and that this mission is for everyone – not just those on the mission field, like Dave and Gill or Sundar or the work in Turkey. Everytime we speak to someone, show and act of kindness or help someone – we are bringing light into darkness. Don’t despise the small things we do and with God we can achieve great things.
In Isaiah 59 vs 15-17 we saw how God looked and was displeased that there was no justice, no=-one to intervene and so sent Jesus as the saviour of the world – Its ok to get displeased that there is no justice, no salvation and that people ignore Jesus and his wonderful salvation.
Questions:
1. Isaiah 62 talks of God saying that “his delight is in us” – How is it that we don’t feel lie that all the time – maybe it`s for others but what about me – How do we move that from head knowledge to heart knowledge?
2. Do you feel called by God for mission – Or is that for others?
3. What have got displeased about this last year? Salvation in our Church has to be one area? I challenged you all to think about praying for one person a month to get saved – Can you join me in this prayer this year- do you have faith for more? Let`s turn displeasure and dissatisfaction into action in 2016.
Have a great week and remember Luke 19 vs 10 – The Son of Man has come to seek and save those who are lost. Put in in your phone as an alarm , on your fridge as a reminder and lets all pray together!
