I want to share a Jesus story from yesterday’s congregational service. It’s an example of how listening to and following Jesus every day everywhere is so relevant to your life…today.
Jesus is the message and He, at times, uses messengers to give His message. It is important, then, for the messenger to know how to listen to Jesus and then follow through on what Jesus says. He gave me the message for yesterday’s congregational gathering.
I was about three-fourths through it when I saw commotion taking place within the congregation. People were getting text messages, who relayed to me that a couple from our church who had just been in a head on collision were being taken to the hospital for emergency surgery. I stopped the message and we talked to Jesus for and about this couple. Now, what did that have to do with the message the Lord gave me?
One of our prayer leaders sent the following email prayer request to the entire congregation, which began as follows: “The message this morning was ‘Who is your God, and who IS your God”.’ My God is Jesus Christ, and He is an awesome Healer, Comforter, Peace Giver, Provider…just to name a few of His attributes. The message also said God gives us challenges in our lives that give us the opportunity to experience WHO He is, and the message was interrupted by this news of Don and Denise’s accident.”
Jesus knew what His people needed to hear. We had just read Acts 8:1-3 where it took persecution to get believers to follow what Jesus told them to do – go make disciples in Judea, Samaria and the rest of the planet; and yet, they were still in Jerusalem.
I shared that it took the death of Stephen to get the church to know who their God was. Then, bang, we were hit with this news. We often think that being a believer in Jesus will make all our pain and sorrow somehow magically go away. Wrong. What it does mean is that we have a God who will walk with us through that pain and sorrow as we continue to listen and follow Him.
Jesus works! As His secure children of God, He really does want to talk to and with you, if only you’d listen. He absolutely wants to walk with you through life’s daily challenges, if only you’d follow. Who is your God? And who IS your God? Hopefully, it’s the One who wants more than Sundays (Saturdays), but an every day walking and talking relationship with you.
In case you need to know how to do this, you can read another message He gave in A Personal Walk in the Presence of Your God. It will give you the necessary tools to experience Jesus in new and fresh ways. Get a copy. Read it. Then tell others who your God IS and what He’s doing in your life.
“S”et Free Nowww