Monday....
Once again the Sunday-night "blahs" reared its ugly head and I couldn't sleep. Well, let me rephrase that. I did sleep, just not for an extended period of time. There is a vast difference to me between Saturday night sleep and Sunday night sleep. Doesn't matter....
2:28 a.m. and I am up and running. Well, actually I'm up and sitting.
Saturday night at Vineyard ReCovery was once again all about the "one". It was mostly family except for one visitor. A first-timer who had heard about VRC and had been wanting to come to a meeting for a while. Here again, we know that Saturday night is not the most opportune time for others to go to church. But this visitor had made it a priority.
So what did they receive? Peace.
The worship was kind of old school recovery songs....
"12 Steps To Heaven"....."I Can Do All Things"......and "God Willing".
The thing I love about Saturday night is the openness and freedom God has given to us to worship Him. Needless to say that our flavor of worship is a bit different. Different doesn't mean better.......just different.
Message was from Luke 2 and Hebrews 12.
Mary preparing a place for Jesus' birth.
The baby was coming....
She prepared a place to receive His birth.
She took cloths and made clothes for him to be wrapped in.
She cleaned out a manger and made it into a bed to lay Him in...
She prepared a place.
Recovery is all about preparing a place daily to receive from Jesus.
It's about removing all the junk from our lives and our hearts in order to give God space to grow and birth His plans for us. I also touched on Hosea 10 where we are commanded to "Break Up Our Fallow Ground". In this case, fallow ground would be our heart. Remove all the rocks, sticks, weeds, and prepare it to receive the seed that God wants to plant.
During ministry time, our prayer was for God to take our hearts and plant His seed. We trust that He will water, and tend to what He has planted, and that in due time we will see evidence of what God had planted in each of us. As I prayed over the room, there was a deep peace that came in. People received it and you could actually watch and see the effects of God's peace. People began to relax and almost sink into their chairs.
The visitor came up afterwards and shared their story with me. At the end, shaking my hand, they said, "This was just what I needed and I didn't even know it." That is what Saturday night is all about. Coming in, worship, teaching, and receiving from God the very thing you might not even be aware of.
God on you....
michael b.
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