Awestruck by the power and love of God!

Acts 2:43:  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

God was at work in the first Church in Jerusalem.   The Lord saved them by grace, through faith, and one of the outcomes was that they were filled with awe.

One of the ways awe can be explained is that it means that you are filled with respectful fear in the presence of the almighty God.  And we need a deep sense of the awesomeness of God. We need to become awestruck by the holy power and love of our God.

This occurs where believers actually see God working amongst them in power and glory. The first Christians experienced the power of God, because they expected in faith to see the might of the resurrected and ascended Christ amongst them.  The core message they preached was after all:  The Lord has risen indeed!

The first Church would not allow anything to distract them from their calling to share Jesus with their community, their city and all who came to listen to the gospel.

We will see God’s miraculous work when we share Jesus with zeal and passion with everyone. When we invite the community to church. But not for self serving reasons, but because we are focused on what is in the heart of God – to see people delivered from darkness of being lost.   The only outreach that makes a permanent difference, is the one started in the heart of God!

Do you want to see God excited about your church, your ministry and your walk with him, then share the good news about his beloved Son with others. Imagine the heavenly powers and the might of the ascended Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit focusing, zooming in and enabling the ministry to which you were called!

That was what happened in the first Church in Jerusalem.

And one of the reasons why they were God’s priority, was that they were filled with awe as they selflessly and reverently served our Lord with holy fear and love.

May the Church of Christ be awestruck with the power and love of God!

May our Lord, Jesus Christ, reveal his awesome, miraculous power as you share Jesus with everyone!

Sermon Recording Numbers 6: 24 - 27 Preekopname!

You can download the recorded sermon preached on 21 June at CPC on the incredible benediction found in Numbers 6: 24 - 27, from our website, in Mp3 format, at the following link:   http://www.centurionwest.co.za/sermons.htm 

"The LORD bless you and keep you!" 

’n Preek op 21 Junie by die CPK in Afrikaans, oor die onvergeetlike hoëpriesterlike seën in Numeri 6: 24 - 27,  kan in Mp3 formaat afgelaai word by die volgende link op ons webwerf:  http://www.cpk.co.za/sermons_a.htm 

"Die HERE sal jou seën en jou beskerm!"

The dangers of being ungrateful.

Paul and Barnabas were preaching the Good News of Christ in the city of Lystra. In their audience was "a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked" (Acts 14: 8). Paul was used by our Lord to heal this man.

The crowds were excited and surprised by this miracle. They proclaimed Paul and Barnabas to be the Greek gods Hermes and Zeus – for who but the gods could do such a wondrous thing as heal a man lame since birth, they thought!

How many times do we, like the people of Lystra, thank the wrong person? We do that every time we give any human, including ourselves, credit instead of thanking God for his blessings.

Paul then states that the healing of the lame man points to the only living God. He tells the crowd that the healing of the lame man is only one testimony among many to the one and only true God.  The healing of the lame man, just as the making of the vast Creation (Acts 14:15) – as well as the revelation of Jesus Christ, point to God only. When the people of Lystra heard the Gospel and saw the healing of the lame man and saw God’s works in the vast Creation, they should have "turned to the living God" with gratefulness and in faith. (vs 15 - 18).  So often we give credit to humans, ministers, leaders, those who make the news, when we should be om our knees before God in humble gratitude!

We never have to fear that God will forget to provide in the smallest detail of our lives. What we must fear is that human pride and worldly thinking might get in God’s way.

More importantly, what we must fear is that we do not give ourselves back to God in gratefulness and love, because we fail to see his mercies and wonders.

Why do we celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

Firstly, because God will in his divine grace and mercy receive all who repent of their sins, to share in the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ. And even when we realise that we are still weak and find it hard to live according to God’s law, we accept in faith founded on the Holy Scriptures, that our human nature cannot prevent us to receive the food that Jesus, our Host at the table, wishes to share with us.

Secondly, because we expect to be reminded by the Holy Spirit of everything Jesus did for us to save us and make us his own. The Holy Spirit speaks God’s Word to us through bread and wine that remind us that Jesus was not only innocently condemned to death and let his body be nailed to the cross, to cancel the debt we have because of our sins, but also was victoriously risen from the grave to raise us up to a new life of love for our God and for our neighbour. We are reminded that Jesus was forsaken by God, that we may be accepted by the Father and never be forsaken by our Lord and his Spirit.

Thirdly, we celebrate the holy Supper to have fellowship, with our Lord at his table. Jesus invites us to feast with him to assure us of his love and salvation. He directs our faith to his perfect and complete sacrifice on our behalf.  By the Holy Spirit, who dwells in Christ as our Head and in us as his members, we have holy communion with him and share in all his gifts, his eternal life and his glory.

Fourthly, we come to his table expecting that the Spirit unites us as brothers and sisters in true Christian love as members of the one Body of Christ. We come to love one another at the holy table and show this love not just in words but also in deeds.

Finally, we come because we expect to receive a foretaste of the amazing joy Jesus promised to his own, that we one day will share at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God. Then we will drink God’s new wine in the Kingdom of God our Father.

We celebrate our Lord’s Supper because there we are nourished and refreshed in our inner-being by the living Christ, as certainly as we receive the bread and wine in remembrance of him.