Last night I really enjoyed myself. It was Wednesday, March 26th and I brought a message entitled the "Wow" Moment. Now I fully confess to the listeners it may not have been one of my best. There were no life changing points nor some great revelation that called the people to repentance or the altar, but I had a good time!
You see last week as I was reading the 9th chapter of John, an area of the Bible I've read countless times (whenever you don't know what the read in the Bible go to those words in red) tears came to my eyes with a new realization. I saw something that had always been there but I had just never taken note of it.
Now I'm not going to put what all it was on here but if you'd like the message just let me know and I'll be glad to mail you a DVD at no charge.
What I saw moved me to tears. I loved what had always been hidden in plain sight from my deep comprehension. At those words I laid my head down on the Bible on my desk and began to weep. The Word of God is SO sacred to me. I just love how the only true God chooses to speak to us through it thousands of years after it was first penned. A new favorite saying of mine says the Bible is the ONLY book that reads you! How true that is.
I wrote some notes on a 3x5 card about the chapter and then stuck them in my Bible with no intention of preaching about it. A lot of things ministers read and study are for themselves, their own personal devotion and strengthening for the call. A few are for preaching but more are for the preacher! I learned long ago that something I may be excited about has no relevance for my congregation. I can be fired up on it and they care less because it was for me, not them. So with no intent to share what God had shown me I filed it away in my Bible... until Wednesday morning.
I have a new mid-week series I want to start and my intention was to begin that night, the Holy Spirit however had a test for me. Sometimes the Lord leads us to do things that are a test of our obedience. Now if it were some great thing, some daunting sacrifice we might jump at the challenge. When the test of obedience is in the mundane, everyday, convenience/inconvenience things of life we often disregard them and go on doing things our way not even taking notice of the Lord beckoning us to change a few things.
My church will tell you I've been saying repeatedly "What God tells you to do may or may not be a great success it may even be a failure, but what it truly is is a test of your willingness to obey."
So led by a check in my own spirit I shared the "Wow" Moment. I don't know if it blessed anyone but me, but it doesn't matter. I had a (in my best Tony the Tiger voice) grrrrreat time! The message certainly didn't hurt anyone and there were plenty of "amen"s and laughter, but that message was for me and I loved it.
I wonder what message God will give me today? I wonder what word He will deliver to you? Understand He wants to talk to us, spend time with us and bless our lives but first we've got to take time for Him. My message was basically a long testimony of how an awesome, almighty God took the time to show me something new just to bless my heart. I hope in sharing I was able to do that for my church as well.
That would NOT have happened if I hadn't taken time to get in His Word. By spending a few minutes I was blessed, I was educated, and my church had the opportunity to grasp one of those fragment points of scripture that are often lost in the big picture. Mountains are beautiful, but you have to dig in them to get the gold!
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and remember, YOU ARE LOVED!
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