Dear Worshipers,
That is the overarching desire I have for our experience of God at our church. I often pray to this end just before the service. I want unbeliever and believer alike to be able to say, "God is really here among [us]." When I read Pastor David's Thursday thoughts last week [see below], I was reminded of this verse.
In this passage, the apostle Paul is offering some instruction to the Corinthian church with regard to the gifts of tongues. He says, "…in a church meeting I would much rather speak five understandable words that will help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language." [v. 19] In the larger passage here, Paul is defending the superiority of prophecy, "helping others to grow in the Lord, encouraging and comforting them" [v. 3] by speaking the word of the Lord.
Though in our church we rarely if ever experience the gift of tongues, we routinely have opportunity to experience the gift of prophecy as our pastors help us grow in the Lord, encouraging and comforting us. That is what Pastor David experienced when he first came here years ago, and that is what I eventually experienced as well.
My timeline was a little different. I had attended this church off and on for a few years before the night I met Christ and realized He wanted me in this church. But my testimony that night could easily have been, "God is really here among you." I was the unbeliever hearing the word of the Lord. It laid my secret thoughts bare, and I humbled myself before Christ to worship Him as Savior and Lord.
I keep using the word "experience". In conclusion, let me explain what I mean by that. By experience, I am referring to God revealing Himself through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church and our responding to Him and that revelation. That experience of God is all about God: God revealing Himself, and our responding to Him sincerely. I pray that happens every time we gather in this place. I trust that it does, even more than we realize corporately.
Some years ago, God revealed Himself to Pastor David, and he responded. Through him some years later, God revealed Himself and I responded. This Sunday through us both and others, God WILL reveal Himself again. I pray you and those around you will be prepared to respond to Him in the way that brings Him the most glory.
In Christ,
Pastor Scott
Pastor David’s “Thursday Thoughts” 10.26.06
"THE MOMENT I WALKED IN THE DOOR I KNEW THIS WAS THE CHURCH FOR ME!" The lady who said this to me was lying in a hospital, facing a grave diagnosis. Her courage and faith inspired me, and the experience she described was familiar as well. Her family had invited her to church on a number of occasions, but she always had an excuse. On a weekend when she knew they were out of town, she decided to pay a visit. I guess she thought that would be "safe" -- if she didn't like it and didn't want to return, perhaps they would never know she had been there at all.
But she did like it. In fact, she felt "at home" the very first time she came...and she has been coming to church ever since. She said, "Most people think it's strange when I tell them this, but somehow I just felt the presence of the Lord and I knew this was where I was to go to church."
Well, it didn't sound strange at all to me. I remember that winter day in 1977 when I decided to visit The Christian and Missionary Alliance Church here in Morgantown. My parents had been attending for a while and had invited me to come. I wasn't going to church anywhere and had no interest in church. I wasn't reading my Bible, I didn't pray, I was distant from the Lord and really didn't care to draw nearer. It was my last semester of law school and I had "more important" things to do than go to church on Sunday morning.
But then the Lord got my attention by allowing certain reversals and disappointments in my life. I'll spare the details here, but it suffices to say that I decided to pay a visit to the church my parents were attending. And I will never forget that morning. I sensed the real presence of the Almighty God the very moment I stepped through the doors of the carport entrance
The experience was remarkable, for two reasons. First, it was both undeniable and unexpected. It was as though God had posted Himself at the door as the "greeter" to welcome me into "His" house. Second, I knew that I was not in a place to discern what the presence of the Lord "felt" like. I wasn't walking with Him; how would I recognize His presence? Of course, the credit was the Lord's. It had nothing to do with how "discerning" I was; rather, He chose to reveal Himself to me in an unmistakable way. It was all by His grace. It always is.
My experience was no mere happenstance or accident. I'm convinced I sensed God's presence because the people of God were praying for His manifestation and were living in His grace. I walked into a realm where God was at work and the people had yielded to His favor and influence. The building itself was not holy, but the Holy One inhabited the people who worshiped in that space. I came to church and I met the Lord.
It should be the same on any given Sunday What this lady found a decade ago...what I found three decades ago...should be the ordinary experience of every person who arrives on our campus and enters our facility. I pray regularly that when people park their car in the lot they will sense that Jesus is here. I pray that as they walk our hallways, as they greet others in the building, as they find a seat in a pew, as they open their bulletin and anticipate the worship, as they lift their eyes to the video screen and their voices in praise, as their ears welcome the words that honor Jesus and His Word...that in all these ways they will meet the One who is the Lord of the Church, the One whose Body celebrates in this place.
And I enjoin you to pray with me to a like end. Let's expect to meet God in church this Sunday! If you do not attend the Morgantown C&MA, pray for the church you do attend. Pray that every person who comes will say, "The Lord is in this place! This is where I belong!"
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