Lest We Forget

Saturday is here and with it comes our gathering tonight. In the past I would have referred to this as a meeting or a service but not today. It is a gathering of people who want to be together. To share in what has happened over the past week. To tell their stories of what God has done to them and for them. It is a time to encourage one another, to pray for one another and to join together in giving thanks to God that we are sober and above ground today.

We have a new group that will join us tonight.
Since our way of gathering is so different from what you would find in most churches, from time to time I have to go back and revisit for these new ones the purpose of why we do what we do. To reintroduce them and myself to who God is. See, we take for granted that we truly know God. We become comfortable with the concept we have of God. I think this is a dangerous behavior to carry around. I need to remember. I need to revisit and commit myself again to following Jesus. We are even told in the book of Revelation that the church at Ephesus forgot their first love. They continued on in carrying out the work of the kingdom but forgot why they were doing this.
Taken from the Association of Vineyard Churches Statement of Faith is who I believe God to be.

We believe that God is the Eternal King.
He is infinite.
He is unchangeable Spirit.
He is perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love.
From all eternity He exists as the One living and true god in three persons of one substance.
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit----equal in power and glory.

We gather every Saturday night to give thanks and proclaim our love and allegiance to God.
Our hearts are tugged to give our allegiance to the earth and the stuff of this world, but we will not surrender our will or our lives to such folly. The course of this world ends in death, both physical and spiritual.
Those of us who have been saved and are being saved even at this point today, have a destiny that awaits us upon either our death or the return of Jesus Christ. That destiny is to live with Him forever and ever. Not to be some sort of heavenly creature that spends eternity sitting on cloud, clothed in white, plucking on a FENDER harp. No! We have been called to "know" to understand and see the perfect truth of who God is. That is what I look forward to the most. To actually get to talk with God in all three parts. To see the people I have read about in Scripture and to be able to talk with them. To ask Paul about his personal conversion experience. To spend time with Moses and ask him what it was like being on a mountain forty days and forty nights with the Lord God Jehovah as company. To ask Noah if at any time during the building of the ark did he feel like giving up. To sit and talk with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and ask her if it just washed over her from time to time the fact of who she had given birth to. That is what I look forward to when heaven is my reward.

I can hardly wait.
God on you...
mb