Monday, February 8
Hello Everyone!
It was great to get back together with the body of Christ after the bad weather. The people of God filled the worship area with joy and warmth yesterday. How wonderful it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity! How it must bless the Lord's heart!!
In our singing yesterday we focused on the grace of God. His unmerited favor that He has chosen to pour out on us by His Holy Spirit and change sinners into saints. It is inconceivable to the human mind, but made possible by the shed blood of Jesus. Oh, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.....
We were especially blessed by a number of youth leading us in worship for a couple of songs. The Lord is raising up worshippers to praise His Name in all generations. His faithfulness is good to see!
Mark led us in a time of prayer and several others joined in. (This would be a great time to devote additional time to prayer and building your prayer life as many in our body have great needs. Let's pray that the Lord's presence would come among us and do mighty works of grace at GCC.)
Mark then preached on "Serving God by Serving Others". He focused on Romans Chapter 12 as he talked about ministering to the Lord through getting involved in the different ministry opportunities at GCC. This chapter starts off with the famous verses, "Therefore, brethren, I beseech You, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may know what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God." So what is it to be a living sacrifice? The nation of Israel for centuries had offered sacrifices of animals for their sins. This all pointed towards the sinless lamb of God who came and made the perfect sacrifice for our sins once and for all. There is nothing more that we can do.
So, as a living sacrifice, what is God asking of us? He wants us to crawl upon the altar and die....die to our plan for our life, to our ambitions and to our rule of our life. And die to our desire to be served. We are now to die to sin (and our sinful lifestyle) and live for God in service to others. This is not easy and, without the working of the Holy Spirit, is actually impossible. That is why the second part of the passage is so important. Our mind must be transformed by God's Word so that we desire to follow Him and not the world.
Since we have been placed by God into the body of Christ, it is important that we surrender our hearts and lives to Him completely. The reason for this is that, when we received the Holy Spirit and were born again, we were gifted with a supernatural gift(s) that prepared us to be used to serve others at GCC. If we fail to minister to others, then we will not build up the body of Christ. A neglected church body will eventually become an unhealthy church body.
So we need to surrender to the Holy Spirit's work in our life for service to others, but also to shape our character. Romans 12 goes on to talk of the character that God desires of us. This is the main issue to the Lord. Gifts can be used in many fleshly ways in the church as many of us have probably seen in times past. However, true godly character cannot be duplicated by man. It is a great testimony to the Holy Spirit's work in a believer's life. The Lord is doing great things at GCC. We have much to be excited about. Let's present ourselves as living sacrifices to Him and watch what He does in and through us.
Greg Jones then took the mic and talked about the ministry opportunities sheet that was made available to us for sign up. If you were not there yesterday, please contact Greg (704-866-7828) or Glenna Sevy (704-810-0551) to receive this. Mark then closed us in prayer and we headed downstairs for our world renowned 2nd annual chili cook-off luncheon.
Thanks to everyone who brought things for the luncheon. The food and fellowship were tremendous. We raised some money for the youth Nicaragua trip and got to try out a lot of different chili's. I enjoy reading the names each year as much as tasting the chili....OK, almost as much. Didn't hear the winning chili when it was announced, but the best name was easy to pick....INTERNAL COMBUSTION!! Have a blessed week.
Your brother in Christ,
Deric Smyre
