Church of the Good Shepherd CEC

We live in a media saturated society, dominated by the sound bite. It occurs to me that because this is so we are perhaps subconsciously being conditioned to think of life in terms of sound bites. The problem with sound bites is that they highlight the “big story”, which is usually sensational. Two things here come to mind. One is that most of our lives involve things media will deem “ordinary”. We get up, we go to work, we interact with others, and we wrestle with problems or work though the effects of problems. Then we come home and perhaps eventually crash out in bed or zone out watching T.V. Hopefully, in all those hours of our waking life we spend time with the ones we love. Second, because of the sound bite, we may come to think that God is only interested in the sensational things of life or that He only responds to these.

I am struck by the thought that our God is a God of the ordinary, as well as the extraordinary. That His presence is actually known as we go about doing ordinary things like washings dishes, folding clothes, typing on our computer, going grocery shopping or commuting on the road. Several centuries back, a “lowly” French monk named brother Lawrence spoke of practicing the presence of God. What he meant by this was our need to continually seek to be intentionally aware of God in our lives. This is something that I believe God wants of us, to be intentionally aware of Him. John 17.3 reminds us that Jesus came so we could know the one true God and to know Him is life.

How does that awareness come about? We ask for it and by God’s empowerment, which He freely gives, we seek to be intentional about inviting God into our day. So, before our feet hit the ground in the morning, we can say, “Lord I acknowledge you, and invite you into this day.” Right before our first meal of the day, we can acknowledge Him with thanksgiving. We can read a passage of the Bible and ask God “to speak to us.” When we get on the road we can ask God to lead us into the paths of His life. Perhaps in our work space we can have reminders of God; crosses, a picture, a verse from scripture are all possibilities. As things come up in our work day that challenges us, we can invite God to come and work in our lives. When we have our lunch, we can give thanks again and offer up prayer for ourselves or others. We can pay attention to our thought life. What is on our minds? Does the Bible have anything to say about what is going on in our heads? More than we realize. As the day comes to a close, we can be reminded that just as the sun sets every day, so another day of our life has set and one day will set permanently. We do not live forever here on earth. Let’s allow nature to witness to us that we only have so much time in our ordinary lives. Let that motivate us to seek the things then that will span beyond this life, to acknowledge God and our relationship to Him and others.

As the day closes, we can say with the Psalmist, “Behold all you that stand in the presence of the Lord, let us bless Lord”(Psalm 134)….Let’s bless Him for this day He has given us and ask for His protection and rest as we lay ourselves down to sleep.

Our lives are ordinary lives made up of ordinary concerns that God extraordinarily cares about. God’s promise is that He will reveal Himself in the ordinary circumstances of life. Let’s acknowledge Him in all that we do by His grace so we can know Him in the ordinary things of life. To know Him is life. And that is extraordinary!

“Follow me” This is what Jesus tells Peter in John 21.19 He has just asked Peter three times if Peter loved him. In the original Greek that this passage was written, the word Jesus uses for love when he speaks to Peter is Agape. Agape is an all encompassing kind of love, the God kind of love. When Peter responds to Jesus and says he loves Him, the Greek word Peter used for love was the word Phileo. This word indicates a kind of friendship love, the kind of love that has great affinity. It is not the same kind of love as Agape. Only God can love agape. But God does not turn away our Phileo. God takes us where we are and leads us into the depths of His Agape. He says to us, like He did to Peter, to follow Him. Where He leads us will challenge us but we need to know that even these challenges are saturated with His agape love.

It strikes me that this thinking is reflected in the following quote by Chinese Christian Watchman Nee in his book, The Normal Christian Life:

“My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundament act. Then, day by day, I must go on giving to Him, not finding fault with His use of me, but accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard. That way lies true enrichment. I am Lord’s, and now no longer reckon myself to be my own but acknowledge in everything His ownership and authority. That is the attitude God delights in, and to maintain it is true consecration. I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher; I consecrate myself to God to do His will where I am, be it in school, office or kitchen or wherever He may, in His wisdom, send me. Whatever He ordains for me is sure to be the very best, for nothing but good can come to those who are wholly His.”

May we give ourselves to God everyday and follow where our Lord leads!

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God-Matthew 6.33
Why does God ask us to seek first the kingdom? What does it mean to seek? What is the kingdom to be about? God asks us to seek first the kingdom because it is what matters most. In the verses prior to this one, Jesus asks His disciples to consider that heavenly wealth outweighs earthly ones.

Money in the bank now has a place, but what will far outweigh that are the things we do as disciples of the king. Things like the little details, those acts of service toward others that go often unnoticed or unappreciated. Like the people we pray for day in and day out, sometimes unbeknownst to them. Like the little acts of kindness done not because others deserve them but because they are worthy of our king.

We live and act for the benefit of others but not because of others. We live everyday seeking the will of the Lord in all the circumstances we encounter. We know He leads us, if we ask Him. Sometimes when we do not ask Him. And that is God’s faithfulness to us. He leads us where we need to go, for our own sake and growth, and for the sake of others.
Which is why we must seek Him. It is a choice we make. We seek Him when we listen for the still, small voice of the Lord. We must be attuned to the providential circumstances He is arranging. We have to allow Him to order our thinking with Godly reason. We have to have His Word in our heart, soul, spirit and mind. We must hear the voice of the Lord in a multitude of counselors. We must encounter Him at the table of the Lord. God calls us and we must answer. He persists but does not override us.

God invites us to join Him in establishing His kingdom. His Kingdom is meant to come on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6.10). As lives are surrendered to the way of Christ, the kingdom is established. It is God’s work, but we are called to be a part of God’s work of saving the lost, setting free the bound up, healing the brokenhearted, and building up the people of God. And as we do that, we experience God ourselves and have His life. Or we are the recipients of His life imparted to us through others whose lives have been surrendered to Him. God is good and so are His ways, even when it may not feel like they are. May we then seek Him always, for our sake and that of others.

“Get thee behind me Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God” (Matthew 16.23).
These are tough words. Jesus spoke them to Peter, not because he was Satan but because Peter’s mindset reflected the influence of Satan. Some might say also that Jesus was speaking directly to Satan that He saw influencing Peter. Either way, the key idea here is being mindful of the things of God.
What does it mean to be mindful of the things of God? It means to see things from how He sees things. But how do we know how God sees things? What is His heart, His way, His attitude, His intent toward us and our lives? How can we know these things?

By getting to know Him! How do we know Him? By meeting Him every day as we read the Scriptures. As we read and seek to understand it over time, we are molded and crafted by the Holy Spirit to grasp God’s perspective on life. Over time, we increasingly become mindful of the things of God.

We meet Him also everyday through our prayers. As we pray, we seek to be silent before the Lord and listen. Prayer is so much more than making requests. It is being quiet and silent so we can hear God! It is have that inner attentiveness that discerns the presence and way of God as we go through our day. As we seek to hear Him day in and day out, throughout whatever circumstances in life we find ourselves, we will become mindful of the things of God.

We meet God also in the everyday interactions we have with others. As believers, we need a community of faith. How often God comes to us through others through a word of encouragement, or even correction. How often does God touch our lives through people by what they say or do, directly or indirectly. And sometimes these interactions and not even with believers! Through our spirit directed interactions, we become mindful of the things of God.

We meet God as we worship Him. As we bow down and worship, either at home, in church or on the street corners of life, in good times and bad, we experience God. We become mindful of His greatness, His ability beyond our ability, His tender love or His awesome Holiness that brings us to reverence, respect and Holy fear. Our God truly is an awesome God.

And let us not remain unaware. Satan is still at work in the world seeking to keep up from being mindful of the things of God. May we seek to know God more everyday and become mindful of Him and His ways! Our God is good.

To God be the Glory, Holy and Almighty Trinity, One God.
Amen.

Psalm 38.5-“For in you, O Lord, have I fixed my hope; you will answer me, O Lord my God

God knows us. Better than we know ourselves. He knows the challenges we face, the things that trouble us and seek to keep us up at night. He knows the road ahead. Whether that looks or is good or bad, God’s promise is the same. “I will be with you”. We can hope in many things, but the hope spoken of above does not mean a forlorn wistfulness that something may happen because maybe God cares and is listening. No. Rather it is said in the knowledge that God is truly with us. He is the most solid thing in existence, as the Hymn says, “the solid rock”. We are meant to build our lives on that mighty stone. God truly is forging a path ahead that He wants us to know and wants us to follow. Our God is a speaking God. We have only to listen. Take a moment today and be still before the Lord, knowing He is God, which means all things are under His control and He is with you. Seek to listen, God is speaking. He will answer us! Let Him lead us into His plans.

God knows your name. And He knows what street you live on. For some of us it is Just Barely Making It Street. For others it is Heartbreak Avenue. May it is Hopeless Place or Sun-Setting Highway. Then there is always Confusion Court, Perplexity Way, Dysfunction Junction, Sobering Station, Boredom Bypass and the Blvd of Broken dreams. Luke 4:16-20 tells us that God is intent on intersecting with our lives. He has come anointed in the power of the Holy Spirit (verse 18). In other words, He came down to where we live. Into our world of pressures, people, pain, problems, etc., etc. etc. He came to bring positive, powerful change. The kind the world hopes for but apart from the divine does not know or see. God is at work everywhere around us. We only need eyes to see. God came to preach the Gospel to the poor (verse 18). Who are the poor? You and me. Though we may or may not have financial means, we are all poor. We all have need of God. Even in our best moments, we have to come to terms with our limitations and imperfections. Despite our best intentions, we often fall short. God knows that. Only He was ever meant to be our sufficiency. Our poverty comes in our unwillingness or inability to recognize that. Particularly in our western world, where God had blessed us in so many ways, allowing us to make so many advances, we find ourselves poor because of our forgetting that God is truly what we need, and if we could see it, who we really long for. Our poverty comes in not being able to see His goodness, our struggling to be honest about doubts because we fail to see He can handle our doubts and can answer them with the loving presence of Himself. God gives us Himself and in that awareness of His majesty, we understand everything has a place though we may not know exactly how. This is more than a doctrinal acceptance based upon blind faith about an abstract God that feels distant. No, this is about a personal encounter with the divine whose evidence is concretely woven into the fabric of our time and space in a way whose existence our minds can grasp yet not fully understand. God came to us so we could know Him. And to know Him is to know that He is love but that His ways are not our ways. God in Christ came to heal the brokenhearted (verse 18). He knows our pain. Though fully God, Jesus was still a human being and on earth choose to live within the limitations of humanity. Though the reasons why we hurt vary, as people we all know a solidarity in suffering and pain. It is part of living in a fallen world. Jesus knew that suffering too. Let us look to the cross if we ever doubt it. But He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. His suffering was a means to a greater end: the joy of resurrection life. And this joy of resurrection life transcends all time and space to all those who offer their broken hearts to Jesus. He is the great physician. Jesus came to set the captives free (verse 18). And we are those who are captive to the short sightedness of sin; the sin that has separated and separates us from God. The sin that feels good for a time but only brings that haunting sense of hollowness that we feel the need to fill with more thrills, political or even religious causes apart from God and the incessant need not to remain still long enough to hear the voice of God calling to us. The sin that leaves us with that sense of perennial purposelessness, a vague or sharp disconnect we try not to reflect upon because it brings us back to wrestle with God. God wants to set us free from that unending cycle. And He wants to set us free from all those behavior patterns that hurt ourselves or others. God wants to give our blind eyes the ability to see (verse 18). See the world from a different plane of perspective, to hope in something more than the now which in turn makes the now full of hope. For us to have eyes to see what has always been there. God wants to see free the oppressed (verse 18). And this is not primarily political in nature thought it does touch upon it. The oppressed in reference are those oppressed by evil spirits. In a word: demons. Demons that seek to harass, confuse, drag down, distort and diminish all things in our lives. They are smarter and stronger than us; but not greater than God. In Jesus, those of us who are oppressed by demons are set free to live life in God to the fullest. Jesus came to give us life and life to the full (John 10:10). Jesus came to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (verse 19). What is the year of the Lord? It is the time of freedom in the here and now for all I have tried to describe in the above and more. God wants to bring us His freedom where we live that only comes with His presence so that where ever we are we can live on Son-Rise Blvd. Open your heart to Him this day and every day. Come Lord Jesus! In the name of the most Holy Trinity. Amen.

In Acts 4:31 we find the same band of disciples who were filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost being filled again. Why? Because as I heard of one German pastor who used to say, “we leak”. When we become believers, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. At that point we are “in Christ”; at that point we are saved. But that is only the beginning. As you read throughout the book of Acts, you find the New Testament church being filled with the Spirit, even after Pentecost. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?

It means to be so full of God that we perceive His presence in our midst and in our life. It is an experiential encounter though the experience itself varies. For some it is an almost overwhelming sense of the greatness and love of God. For others it is like a blanket of peace that comes upon them and they may find themselves feeling like they are floating down onto the floor. Sometimes being filled with the Spirit happens when we are praying to God, as in Acts 4:31. At other times it happens when believers lay hands on others and pray (Acts 8:17, Acts 9:17-22, Acts 19:6). However God chooses to do it, it is an encounter with the presence of God.

We need the presence of God in our lives. God wants to inhabit His people to the fullest extent. We are the body of Christ. Among other things, what that means is that Jesus wants to use our bodies and our lives to continue to minister to those around Him like he did as recorded in the Gospels. In the same way that He proclaimed the Good News, set the captives free, healed the blind and proclaimed the year of the favor of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19), Jesus wants to keep doing that through us. It is what we should expect. That is New Testament Christianity.

But for that to happen, we have to have open hearts and lives. We have let him be Lord over us. That does not mean that we are walking in perfection, but it does mean that we walk with our hearts open to Him daily. It means we seek Him through daily prayer. It means we meet Him every day in His Word. It means that we meet Him as we gather together as a body to worship Him on Sunday. It means we receive Him through the body and blood in weekly Eucharist. It means we ask Him to show us even what thoughts must be brought before Him and made captive to His truth (2 Corinthians 12:5). It means being in a place of openness and repentance before the Lord, empowered by His Spirit, every day. We need God to fill us with His presence. God will do it, as we seek Him, day by day. If we do not ask, we will not receive. We have to expect that we will receive. If we who are evil (sinners) know how to give gifts to our children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). In the original Greek this verse was written in the understanding is that we have to keep asking. God gave us the Holy Spirit when we were saved, but we need the ongoing filling of His presence. Let us keep asking for His manifest presence. If we ask, we will receive (Luke 11:9-12) and we will keep getting filled with His presence.

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday. It is a day we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church 2000 years ago. Often times we think of this day in terms of the power of God coming from on high. And that was certainly a part of it. But we have to remember that the coming of the Holy Spirit on that day is not to be equated with an impersonal, empowering force coming upon those believers. The Bible is clear that our God is Triune Unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first place we encounter this is in Genesis one, with the statements that speak of God in the Plural, such as “let us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26). In the Gospel of John, Jesus identifies the Holy Spirit as the one who does not speak of Himself but magnifies Jesus to the Glory of the Father (Johan 16:13-15).

Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit of God, meant to magnify JESUS. As Jesus was magnified that day, so was the Father God. The Holy Spirit still is doing that work today. When we become believers, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. He magnifies the presence of Jesus, and through Jesus, the Father. We become temples of the Holy Spirit. In order to grow in God, we need the person of the Holy Spirit. We need Him to manifest the presence of God in our midst. There is a powerful, particular way God does this when as believers we are filled with His presence in a more tangible way that releases us further into God. This can happen in the company of other believers but also when we are alone. It is meant to happen more than once. Many times it is touched off through the laying on of hands but not only. Often it comes about as we are worshipping Him through song but can also happen while we are in silent prayer. It can happen through a Eucharistic encounter with Christ. The only real prerequisite is that we simply desire more of God. I pray that we together may hunger and thirst for more of God and His presence. Not just once, but persistently. This was the point of Luke 11:13. Let us ask so that we may receive Him and allow Him access to the deepest points of our lives so that we might be conformed into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29).

There is an analogy from C.S. Lewis that I like. In it, he likens the Christian spiritual life being akin to someone who has purchased a home in poor shape. Like any good homeowner, after purchasing it, the buyer begins to work on the home. However, in the course of restoration, he sees some things that need to go. Some pipe work needs to not only be replaced but rerouted. There is a wall in the way of the new design that has to go. Tiles need to be taken out and perhaps a doorway removed. Demolition then is in order. Things have to be torn out in order to be rebuilt. As I write this I am having memories of doing demolition work on a rundown, historic home my father bought only to rebuild it. The finished home was beautiful, but in order to make that transformation, the old had to go to make way for the new.

Our lives are like that old run down home God has purchased through the blood of His son. As the new “homeowner”, He (God) begins a work of restoration. But it’s a restoration that goes according to His plan. He is the expert builder/rebuilder and knows how things work best. And we are that run down home. We become that beautiful restored home in His hands as He works on us. But unlike that home, we can resist the process. How do we do that? We do that when we tell God that he can’t have access to the rooms of our heart. We do that when we tell God, “no, no, Lord you can’t touch this or that part of my life” or “no, no, God, this is who I am and you can’t tell me or doing anything else here with me”. Another way we resist the process is when we tell God “this is how this or that should be done” or “I can handle this on my own God, thank you…” And in doing the above things, we frustrate the work of God in our lives. Not because God can’t overtake us, but because He respects our choice, even though we really no longer have a right to have a choice. He is after all, the homeowner. And in resisting, we unnecessarily frustrate ourselves by becoming subject to the futility of sin that keeps us in our dilapidated state.

I believe one of main reasons we do this is because we confuse God’s love with just acceptance and not change. We are so thankful God takes us as we are as sinful, broken people. He has compassion on our weaknesses. He affirms our worth when no one else does. Yes, thank God for this! But if we are to grow and experience a life in relationship with the Almighty, we have to realize God is not merely intent on just accepting us. He seeks to changes us for our good. He seeks to mold us and make us into the conformity of Christ (Romans 8:29). In our day and age when so often so many go on a quest to “find themselves” God’s response to that quest is a wondrous but startling discovery. We do not really know who we are and were meant to be until we are in Christ! Up until then, we are defined by our history, our joys, our sufferings, our comforts, our gifts, our failures, our accomplishments, our race, our ethnicity, our nationality. Years ago there was a line from one of the Star Trek movies where Captain Kirk says this so clearly when he declares “my pain has made me who I am”. Yes, pain is one of the major things that mold us. But God is the healer of our pain! God wants us to live our lives as the treasured, beloved sons and daughters He always wanted us to be in Him. He wants to affirm us as male and female, designed to live as such. No matter where we are on the spectrum of spiritual, emotion, mental, or sexual confusion, and no matter how we got there, God wants to heal and make us anew. God is no respecter of person and though the specific needs of our lives may vary, they are all satisfied in Him. God is so much more than about acceptance; He is about positive, redemptive, restorative change that comes only as we submit to his work in our lives, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

But we have to choose to not resist. We have to choose to give up the perception that we have a right to tell God how to conduct His business in our affairs. At every point that we do that, we are not truly letting Him be Lord but are still holding on to our own power and control. As Christians, God has made plain the vast majority of His ways. Churches may differ in how to explain some things, but the things that matter most are plainly clear. What we need then is not to try and accommodate God and his Truth to our society but how to live God’s truth in our society. Only in so doing will we come to know the fullness of life in God. Only then will our lives taken on depth, meaning, and purpose as we grow to become all that we are called to be and do according to God’s power and plan for our lives in the here and now. Only then will we know the fellowship of His sufferings along with the power of His resurrection-both of which are needed to become mature disciples of Christ (Philippians 3:10). Only then will we truly be able to love those who misunderstand us and heap abuse on us, even as we seek to love them and do them good. Only then will we be able to be lights in the darkness that dispel moral and philosophical confusion. Only then will we be able to be vessels of healing to those suffering and dying about us. Let’s choose not to resist and instead lean on each other in this walk of faith of letting God make us who are meant to become. We are mean to become beautiful homes where God’s Spirit dwells.

God bless!

Our God is a speaking God. One of the ways He speaks to us is through the prophetic word. The prophetic word I am referring to is the one that is a verbal message from God to us through others. It is a message that does not contradict the written revelation of God, the Bible, nor does it attempt to add to it or “correct” it any way. Does God still use people as messengers today? In writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle encouraged the believers to desire to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14). He indicates that the heart of God is reflected in true prophesy because it builds up the faith of the believers, exhorts and comforts. Nowhere in the Corinthian letters or in the rest of the New Testament, are we told that this kind of prophesy is to cease.

What do we do when someone claims they have a prophesy or a prophetic word, from God? First of all, we examine if it is biblical. Is it something we see that is sanctioned in Scripture? Does it contradict or complement the Word of God? If it does not fit with Scripture, then it is to be disregarded. For example, if a prophetic word is directing us to deny established doctrine, like the Trinity, or take advantage of another, or engage in any kind of abuse or clearly immoral, rebellious, disrespectful behavior, it should be dismissed. A true prophetic word from God does not condemn, and even if it brings correction, it is so the person can repent, be reconciled and restored.

Second, does the prophetic word given to us fit with what has been going on with our lives? Recently, a friend shared with me how he felt God was directing him to start a particular ministry. He could see it was biblical to start that kind of ministry but was still unsure about whether or not to do it. Quite unexpectedly, he received a prophetic word from someone who did not know what he was considering. The prophetic word was that my friend should start the exact kind of ministry he was considering. God knew the direction my friend needed, and conveyed that to him through another believer.

Third, even if the prophetic word does fit with what had been going on within and around us, it is best not to take any action on it immediately. All prophetic words have an element of subjectivity in that they require some interpretation and we have to trust God to unfold what that prophetic word may actually mean. I recall a minister friend of mine who began attending a church in his local area that was not of his denomination. He began attending because he was retired and there were no other local churches of his denomination nearby. One day he received a prophetic word that he was coming under new leadership. At the time, it could have appeared that meant he was to leave his present denomination in favor of the church he had been attending. But he prayed and waited on the Lord for more direction. Within a few months, circumstances changed so that he indeed had come under new leadership. However, it was under a different leader within his denomination! Just imagine the potential havoc that would had ensued if my friend had rushed to interpret the prophetic word given in light of only his immediate situation!

In many cases, prophetic words are a confirmation of what God has already spoken to a person or a clarification of what a believer may have already suspected. But sometimes they are not. In such cases we have to pray, wait and see, with openness to the possibility that what is being shared may be of God. We continue to do what we are called to do, and if the prophetic word is correct, then we will find the circumstances around us beginning to change. Or we will receive other indicators/signs that clue us into the fact that the prophetic word was correct. But our first priority in this situation is to pray, seek God for His will to be done, and follow His leading. Now some times there will be a prophetic word that resonates with us immediately. We feel that it is right. But even in those cases, we must still pray, reflect and ask God for more direction. It is wise at this point to consult with others who have experience with the prophetic and are reputable. In a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom (Proverbs 15:22).

Some prophetic words are given to make sense of things that are happening around us. These could be things that have an effect on a larger scale. Again, if these words are biblical, not adding or taking away from Scripture, but an outflow of it, we can be open to their possibly of being from the Lord. We must listen and we must pray and ask God to give us ears to hear what He may be saying. If things begin to happen that the prophetic words predicted we can have assurance that they are from God.
God wants us to trust Him through all the phases of our life. He wants us to communicate with Him and for us to hear His voice as our Good shepherd (John10:27). Prophetic words are not a substitute for us seeking to hear God for ourselves. Nor are they the primary things by which we live our lives. Rather, they are like sign posts along the way, that affirm our God is the Lord of all. They are given so that we might be encouraged to trust, seek and obey God even more. They are given to confirm or prompt us in a given direction-God’s direction.

In the last few months, Bishop Jones has shared several prophetic words with his cathedral church and with the clergy. Some of you have heard these words in our Sunday evening gatherings here in Chelsea. These have now been posted on the website www.aslanroars.com. I encourage you to visit the site, see what is written and prayerfully reflect upon these words. I have done this myself, and have found these words to be very biblically orientated.

In every major renewal movement/revival that the church has seen in the last 2000 years, everyone has been preceded by prayer and repentance. The people of God have become hungry for Him and His presence and have sought to leave behind all things that hinder their ability to follow Him. As they have done so, they have been transformed and in turn became a catalyst for God to use to touch the lives, and the society, around them. Many of these prophetic words from the Bishop are encouragements to meet God in that place of brokenness and repentance. And as we do, we will decrease in our flesh life, and He will increase in conforming us to His character. As John the Baptist said long ago, we must “decrease so He can increase (John 3:30).

May we during this Easter seek to hear the Lord more clearly, be open to the prophetic word as a means to hear what God is saying to us and respond in faith and obedience.