Sunday, July 2, 2006 - Say It Anyway!

I love some of the things that I see happening at church lately. There is a renewed excitement for people as they bring in new friends and family members. Some stay, some leave - and people continue to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ. More about that in a moment.

I LOVED the worship today. Not that it was anything necessarily out of the ordinary so far as song selection, but we were together, we were encouraging each other, and it was good - both services. Thank you for your preparedness when we get together to praise and worship.

The word today was good too. I started a mini-series called Becoming a Person after God's Own Heart, a message that I heard originally by Bishop Joseph Garlington. It is so good that I decided to preach it to my people, and it went well. We talked about the first ingredient, which is waiting on the Lord. Waiting includes 5 things:

1. Watching my spiritual backside.
2. Waiting for God's timing.
3. Not telling God how to handle my problems.
4. Seeking God's presence in worship.
5. Abandoning my plan.

Perhaps the most significant part of the message was the end where I talked about forgiving ourselves, Here's what I said:

^{If you came her wondering “why did I make that mistake?” – God is wondering, “Can’t you forgive yourself?” At some point, you have done, are doing, or will do something stupid – something you said you never would. You can stand there in that place for the rest of your life and ask “why? Or you can forgive yourself – you can say, “I was baptized, and that stuff was buried. Why should I carry this with me – I am letting this die, I’m killing this. I forgive myself.” (say that with me). The devil would like to keep you locked in that place in your past, because if he can, he will keep you from your place in the present and your destiny in the future. You can’t hold onto the past and get the right future – you have to let it go. Your pride would make you think that we would never sin or mess up like we did – do you have a glorified body that you shouldn’t mess up – like we are too mature to mess up - once God has forgiven you, forgive yourself. Say, “I forgive myself.”}

It was a powerful moment as people who realized that they had never forgiven themselves desperately needed to do so, that it would hinder God's work within them. Because of this, I was able to lead a woman to the Lord after the service was over - what a powerful experience!

Overall we had 140 in attendance, and it was good.

Tonight we had the church picnic at the Weststrates - it was so much fun interacting with the Spanish foreign exchange students, with members from our local community, and also the egg-blowing game (see pictures to follow!).