Jan 31 2010
Pastor’s notes
Welcome! It is our prayer that on this first day of the week you will find yourself renewed and strengthened for your journey as we worship together in this place. Margie and I are in Mandurah this morning. It’s my weekend off and Margie needed to see the doctor in Perth. Kevin Tengvall will share God’s Word with you today.
My heart has been stirred at the Wednesday Prayer Meeting as we have sought to understand the meaning and purpose of “Revival”. This past week we saw that when you are convinced about the truth of something, that conviction takes a hold of your life. (I touched on this last Sunday morning too, so God must be saying something!) My own conviction is that I (and probably other Christians too) are satisfied with far less than the fullness of God’s promise, and we are easily strangled by the world and its expectations. Let me illustrate, outside my study window is a lemon tree. It had been invaded by a creeper and if I had left it, the creeper would have strangled the tree. However I cut off the invading tendrils and as I look at the tree now I see the dead remnant of the creeper still twined through the branches – they have no more stranglehold but they are still a burden and they make the tree look ugly. Our lives are often like that – we come to Jesus, we cut the ties with sin but we still feel their burden, fearful that they will somehow regain power. The strangling vine of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil invaded the Tree of Life – we might have cut the life from the vine but we must also drag the dead branches from the tree if we want to know life in its fullest. A new book about the Pope John Paul II tells that he used flagellation to bring himself closer to Jesus. The idea is similar but perhaps a bit extreme. I believe that we simply need to be more certain of our faith and trust in the power of God to remove our sins from us “as far as the East is from the West.” The promise of Jesus is NEW LIFE – and it is so radically different to the old life that Jesus explained it to Nicodemus as being ‘born again’. Let’s step out in faith, believing that we ARE ‘born again’, we DO have a new life. The old has gone and the new has come – and the new life is brimming with promise. It is the abundant life!
Our new Junior Youth Group starts Friday at 5pm. It’s open for all children from Year 3 to Year 7 (Hope I got that right!) It’s going to be fun!!! (Volunteers contact me)
On Sunday evening we have our first SNAC service, starting at 6pm. Bring some food to share. After tea we will look at why the Ten Commandments are still relevant today. I will be in Southern Cross the following week so we will then have a movie on the Mighty Men’s Conference.
God bless
Rev David de Kock
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