I am expecting God to continue the great and mighty works going into the New Year. This past year we grew closer to each other and closer to The Lord. We took great steps of faith serving and working in the community in which God placed this body of believers.
I believe we are setting a powerful testimony to both the lost and other believes by our action and by our willingness to serve God in this area.
John 13:35 says " By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
1 John 3:18 says " Little children, we must not love in words or speech, but in deed and truth, that is how we will know we are of the truth......
My prayer for our church is that we stay on the path that we are already on and continue to grow in our faith and relationship with Jesus Christ. If we are to accomplish the mission that God has given us then we have to live out our faith and live as though we are new creations.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says " 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
If the Church lives as the new creation, they were created to be, then we will spend more time on others this year and less time on ourselves. The Enemy tells us so many lies about who we are in Christ and literally keeps us living out the old life.
The enemy wants to keep us from loving on people and living our faith in such a way where peoples lives are changed by His love and by His action.
God made us knew, fresh, and clean through salvation in Christ. My prayer is that we as a congregation would embrace this verse for the course of the year. That we were made new and old things are gone.
The old way of thinking and living are no longer a factor but we live the new life we were created to live.
Romans 6:4 says "4 Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life.
I am thankful I am a part of a group who truly walks in a new way of life but it's only by the grace of God. As we continue to grow spiritually and numerically, we will continue to send out followers of Jesus into this community to teach others about who Christ is and hopefully set good examples to others.
We may be the only example of Christ that people see!
