At our church, The City Life Church, we talk about everyone having a M548 priority. It comes from Matthew 5:48 where Jesus says, "...be perfect." We should all have some areas of growth that we are believing for, striving for, change that we are expecting to come, personal transformation, knowing that Jesus' call to us may be impossible to fully obtain but we can closer to perfection this year than we were last year, believing that Jesus knows we will never be perfect as He is perfect but we MUST never be content with how far we have already come...pressing forward always, longing to be less in some ways but also more in others...GROWING!
One of the "more in some ways" for me is that I want to experience what the Apostle Paul refers to as a prophetic gift in 1 Corinthians 12...which in part means that God will give to us a message for others, sometimes an individual, that will have details in it that would be impossible for you to otherwise know if it were not for God revealing it to you. The Apostle Paul continues in the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians that a person is estranged from God may come into a meeting, a gathering where people are worshipping God and studying the Bible and someone there begins to speak, to share a message from God that feel inspired to give...and the person estranged from God is listening. And in the message are details about this person's current circumstances, even thought they know no one there knows them...how could this person speaking know such things, such specific details about my life...and in that moment they finally believe that God is real and through God these details have been revealed. So often Jesus spoke of the miracles He performed were for the purpose of people finally believing in God! I, me, Pastor Fred...I want to experience the supernatural in such proportions that it causes others to believe in God...I want to grow in that way!!
So, I grew a little this past week. I was praying for our Saturday service that was just a few days away and I felt God's voice speak. He said, "I have something I want to say to someone who is going to be there on Saturday and it is going to be the person who sitting to the right of Jenna." I knew exactly who He was speaking of, but the problem was that Jenna doesn't come to our church. She is a member of our mother church, Christian Life Center, in Williamsburg. So, I asked God if He could possibly suggest a different person! He assured me that she would be there. I was doubtful. Sometime later He speaks to me again and challenges me to believe! He challenges me to right down all these details in my sermon notes, to make a record of it so that when Saturday comes and everything that He has told me comes true that there will be documented evidence of this prophetic moment.
I get to church on Saturday and guess who is already there? Not only is she there, but she is on the keyboard, filling in on the worship team!! I walk into the sanctuary and she is on the stage! She's there!! I just couldn't contain it so I interrupted the worship practice to tell them the story! We all joked with Jenna that she better be careful where she sat!
The words God gave me for whoever the person was going to be sitting to her right was "strength and power." I found those words in Psalm 68.
PS 68:28 Summon your power, O God;
show us your strength, O God, as you have done before.
PS 68:35 You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary;
the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.
Praise be to God!
What a precious moment it was for the couple who was just to the right of Jenna. What a precious moment it was for all of us...
Believe!
Pastor Fred
