Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a full and a very blessed weekend of witness, worship, and fellowship. The worship yesterday was led by the seniors, the " Keen Agers". It was a time of testimonies and telling of the story of a life in Jesus Christ.
Alice and I walked over three miles last evening before sunset in one of the beautiful parks of Broome County. We came across a large flock of Canadian Geese grazing by the pond and the riverside. We saw two sets of goslings learning to graze by their mothers,. They looked unhurried and unafraid. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Praise the Lord for the way He cares for the birds of the air and the fowl of the fields.
I attended the Annual Conference of our Upper New York Conference of the United Methodist Church that was held in Rochester this past week. The Upper New York Conference is comprised of 12 districts with 973 churches. The membership of the conference stands at 185,000. Dr. Marcus Mathews is our Bishop, who loves the Lord and who leads the conference with passion for Jesus and the passion for winning people for Jesus Christ. He has challenged the conference to win people for Jesus Christ, making Disciples For Christ. It was reported during the conference that 2,434 new believers were added to the churches across the conference since January of this year. Over 2000 delegates attended the conference.
Highlights of the conference were the times of worship and the Bible Study led by Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey, of South Carolina. Another high light of the conference was the music by Choir of the African University, a United Methodist University that is located in Zimbabwe. The music was anointed and powerful.
Yesterday was the Day of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the first disciples, giving birth to the Church, which has been under the same management for last 2000 years.
John Wimber was a product of the Jesus movement in the 60’s. He met Christ in a dramatic way, and began reading the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels and then on to the book of Acts. He was excited about what he was reading, but when he went to a church he was disillusioned. The polite and tidy service was over exactly on time. Wimber looked at some of the people around him and said: “When are you gonna do the stuff?” “What stuff?” they wanted to know. He said, “You know. . . the stuff!” He had been reading about the conversions, healings, deliverance and other miracles that took place in the early church recorded the book of Acts. But, instead of signs and wonders, he saw no sign of anything that would make him wonder, except the deadness of the ritual he had just sat through.
The church today needs to discover once again that we have an unchanging Saviour and an unchanging kingdom. We need once again to discover the power of Pentecost. We need to become a Pentecostal church — and I am not talking about a denomination — I am talking about an Acts 2 church. We need to be filled with the Spirit. We need to be operating in the gifts of the Spirit. We need to see people’s lives turned around. We need to see people healed physically, emotionally, relationally, socially, and spiritually. We need to experience the unity of the Spirit as the early church did. We need to be living in genuine love for each other, and when we fail at that then we need to seek reconciliation. We need to have the fire fall and the people of God to rise up.
Rick Kirchoff has said, “When God sends forth the Spirit amazing things happen: barriers are broken, communities are formed, opposites are reconciled, unity is established, disease is cured, addiction is broken, cities are renewed, races are reconciled, hope is established, people are blessed, and church happens. Today the Spirit of God is present and we’re gonna’ have church. So be ready, get ready. . . God is up to something. . . discouraged folks cheer up, dishonest folks ‘fess up, sour folks sweeten up, closed folk, open up, gossipers shut up, conflicted folks make up, sleeping folks wake up, lukewarm folk, fire up, dry bones shake up, and pew potatoes stand up! But most of all, Christ the Savior of all the world is lifted up.”
Pentecostal power comes when we realize that the Christian life is not about keeping rules, but about knowing Christ. Being a Christian is not just doing the right thing or believing the right doctrines; it is knowing the right person. It is not about being a member of the church or reciting creeds. It is not about baptism or communion, although those are important parts of our life together. It is about surrendering my life, my body, my mind, and my heart to Jesus Christ and asking him to take up residence in me. It is about confessing my sin and turning from it. It is about banking everything I have and am on God and loving him with my whole heart.
The Christian faith is not a feeling. It is a reality. It is a real relationship with a real person — Jesus Christ. Christianity is about the most powerful and wonderful person in the universe who loves us intimately. This experience is not tame; it is wild and powerful. Paul said, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
The Christian life is not just about salvation, but transformation. Pentecostal power comes when we overcome apathy with zeal. If we are experiencing Pentecostal power then it is impossible to be apathetic toward the things of God and his kingdom. A true transformation results in a transformation of the heart that loves God and desires to know him better every day. When we are delivered from the bondage of sin and ushered into the kingdom of God, where there is true freedom, we delight in the things of the Lord.
The more we know the Rise Lord, the more we will love him, and the more excited we will be about the his kingdom. The more we love him, the more we will want others to know him. The more we experience his presence and power, the more of it we want. This is the way to live. We have been forgiven. We have inherited eternal life. We have experienced eternal love. We are holding nothing back because we have discovered life. We have found the pearl of great price, and it is worth more than everything else we have seen or possessed. Because of this we are excited about life and we are excited about the wonderful God we serve. The Bible says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1, New Living). The apostle Paul did this, for he wrote, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/NMAjC7NaItA
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday,June 18 , 2011
6 PM Coffee Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Brown Naik
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