Sunday, February 5, 2006

Both services today were great, but for my money, I would say the second service was perhaps the best service we have ever had. The responses to the worship and the word were great all around, but in the second service we hit on a time of calling out to God and worship after the word was brought that in our church's experience was unparalleled.

To begin, the worship was great. People were ready, and they immersed themselves in praising God. We learned the song, "Love the Lord Your God," blasted out "How Great Thou Art," and just the whole worship time was incredible. The word was so well-received. After I spoke, I was so excited as people stood around the altar during the invitation, reaffirming and re-establishing God as the authority in our lives (according to the blessing of authority from Ephesians 1:9-10).

But it was after the invitation that God decided to stay around :) because we were serious about applying the word to our lives, and so we just began to praise the Lord and declare His authority in our lives and in our church, and then we worshipped some more. Honestly, I believe our church reached another level of worship - not that we will automatically stay there, but we know that God has a breakthrough in store and if we come prepared and surrendered like we did this past week, it will become our regular worship.

I heard a message today and there was something explained that I need to pass along:

• There is the favor (blessing) of God in church – we don’t just come to church, we come to experience something that God has deposited in this day for us – it’s called favor.
  

I think God was pleased, and He annointed our church with His favor in our worship this past weekend. But I know He wants this for us EVERYTIME, and He actually deposits it in our church in advance for us to experience, if we will seek it out. May this be the desire of our hearts without fail every time we come together, to find the deposit of favor God has for us!

As you can tell, I am so very excited about what we felt and experienced this past week - even with many regulars missing, we still had 132, and God was near. I look forward eagerly to this coming Sunday!