[Dailydevo] Daily Devotion Wednesday March 15, 2006

[Barry Ludwig]

Daily Devotions Wednesday  March 15, 2006

The Daily Devotions are this week are written by Pastor Dave Hendricks.
During the season of Lent, the theme of Zion's Wednesday services (5 & 7pm)
is based upon our congregational set of values. Those values flow from the
person and name of Jesus (Justice, Energy to witness, Spiritual maturity,
Understanding the radical nature of Grace, Service to those in need). This
week we explore Energy to Witness.

 

Luke 4:18-19 NRSV

Jesus read this at the beginning of his public ministry. "The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight to
the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor". 

 

Luke 19:10 NRSV

Jesus said this after Zacchaeus was found by the Lord, "For the Son of Man
came to seek out and to save the lost".

 

Luke 24:46-48 NRSV

Jesus made sure he said this to his followers before he ascended, "Thus it
is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the
third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed
in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of
these thing" 

 

Thought

"The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its
ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces
into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel.  Rather, the
missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices
of a society in order to be Christ to those who don't yet know him." The
Shaping of Things to Come p.12 written by Frost and Hirsch

 

More than two thousand years have passed since the ascension of Jesus the
Messiah. The church in North America must ask itself some difficult
questions in this 21st century. Do we follow the example of Jesus?  What is
our primary reason for gathering as an assembly?  Should any congregation be
satisfied with seeking to "attract" people to its assembly?

 

It seems to me that Jesus went into the streets so that he might encounter
the lost and give the Word to those seeking that which they could not even
put into words.  Would Zaccheus have sought Jesus out if Jesus had not
walked by the street Zaccheus lived on?   

 

Prayer

Lord I am often so afraid to have the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.
I confess how warm it makes me feel to simply rest in your assembly of
believers and feel like a good Christian.  Send me out into the world of the
lost, forsaken, and imprisoned so that your love and life might flow through
me and to them.  Remember that I am afraid that nothing of me will be left
if this happens. Amen.

 

 

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