Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
A gentle soul if ever there was one.....
Yet in that gentleness was a fierce love for God and for the word that was evident every time he stood to teach.
George Creel....
I found some audio cassettes of George the other day.
Listening to his voice, I was filled with gratefulness for what this man did for me and my wife. You see, Vicki and I were trying to come out of a seven year journey where we had drifted away from God. O.k.....let's be honest. We ran away! Thought we'd be all grown up and live the good life. Turned out the so called good life was that good after all.
We both knew that we needed to be in church. We had two sons and Vicki's grandfather had lovingly chastised us for not giving our sons the opportunity to be brought up according to God's ways. So we began trying to decide where to go. Vicki's mother had been after us to visit her church and here this pastor who was an incredible teacher. We gave in and made plans to visit Central Methodist United Church.
Sunday came and we made our way into the building. Finding a place to sit, we settled to see what all the fuss was about. It didn't take long...
I remember George telling us to "Open your Bibles"....giving us an address where we could read along with him. But never had the words "Open your Bibles" ever had more meaning that it did on that Sunday morning. Literally the Bible was opened in my heart for the very first time ever. The message was a prophetic message tying Scripture to an event that was taking place in the world. The service lasted an hour, but it seemed like five minutes. I remember us both walking to the car, looking at each other asking, "What was that?" We were dumbfounded. I wanted more, so we went back. And we went back some more. We took notepads with us, along with our Bibles, and we took notes as fast as we could.
Each week, the Scripture was unrolled and laid bare for us to see and digest.
George Creel taught us about the person and function of the Holy Spirit. In my up bringing, the Holy Spirit somehow was relegated to the back burner of the Trinity. Any talk about the Holy Spirit was seen as removing Jesus from His rightful place, and we weren't going to stand for that.
George taught us about spiritual warfare and deliverance. Never heard that one in Sunday School. His teaching was simply a matter of fact...no need to hype or fill the words with great swells of emotion. Yet there were times when George would say very hard things that we needed to hear as a church. He never sugar coated his message...you knew you were getting your toes stepped on, only because God was in the message. Usually if George brought up a sin or attitude that was prevalent in our midst...he would stop in the message and say, "Do you still love me?"
George loved prophecy. He did a multi-week series on "God's plan for the Ages"...taking us from Genesis to Revelation. I'd never heard anything like this at all. Vicki and I found ourselves with a hunger for God's word, and His presence. Spiritually, Vicki and I grew more during our fourteen years at Central than at any other time in our lives.
I have been blessed to have had spiritual giants in my life. Men who showed me what it meant to be godly. Men who loved the Word of God and sowed it into my life. Men like........Lewis Wood....Don Gentry....George Creel....And John Wimber. If you don't have anyone like that in your life, pray and ask God to show you where they are. We all need that voice of wisdom that has been farther out with God than we have, who can show us the way.
Thank you George...
For all you did....
For all you taught...
For how you lived.....
See you soon.
God on you...
mbb
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