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Paul writes in Ephesians 2:19-22, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

There are times when we need to be alone with God in prayer. But there are other times when we can only experience the fullness of His presence as we come together with His people.

The church is like a corporate headquarters. When people who are individually indwelt by the Spirit meet there for worship, praise, instructions, encouragement and service, God’s Spirit is revealed in a powerful way and we grow as we experience His presence and hear His Word.

The world and circumstances may beat us up all week and make us feel like losers, but when we gather with other members of Christ’s body, we are reminded that we are on the winning side.

It’s hard to celebrate all by yourself. When you have something worth celebrating, you call people together so you can share the joy. Jesus Christ is so excited about His victory at the cross that He calls us together each week to celebrate what He achieved for us. And celebration, like spiritual growth, is a group project.

This Sunday, don’t miss out on the opportunity to celebrate the victory we have together in Christ!

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 8.07. Live for God, on purpose, gathering together with other believers to encourage them, and to be encouraged!

Surrounded by Bones

I’m not sure how many people live in the community that you reside in, but here in Delaware, there are just under a million people, with a little over half of those residing in northern New Castle County. A half-million people living in the small area north of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, south of Pennsylvania, east of Maryland, and west of the Delaware River. As I drive down I95, it seems as though I see at least half of them, hurriedly scurrying here and there, going about their daily activities. As I visit the Christiana Mall, there’s another large group of these individuals, all moving here and there, with their families and friends. Head down to the beach in the summer, and I’m again surrounded by more people, either stuck in traffic near the outlets, or jammed together on the strip of sand between the water and the boardwalk. People. Everywhere.

I’m sure you have experienced this same feeling – all of these people, and you don’t know them, or have any real contact with them. And you have this feeling – the feeling of being surrounded by a “sea of humanity.”

I wonder if that is the feeling that Ezekiel had. The Lord brought him into the center of a valley. And there he stood. Surrounded by bones.

And the Lord told him to preach to the bones, to command them to hear the word of the Lord. But the bones were dead and dry. Why would the Lord have Ezekiel preach to dry old bones? Because He wanted to give them life.

Here in Delaware, we stand in the midst of bones. People with meaningless lives, rushing here and there, but no purpose, no reason for being, just doing whatever it is they do because that is what they do. And the Lord asks me, just as He asked Ezekiel, “can these bones live?” Mimicking Ezekiel, I say “You alone know, Lord.”

What do you do when you are surrounded by bones? God asks us if those bones – those folks we see around us everyday – if they can live. This Sunday we will hear His word for us as we are “Surrounded by Bones.”

What Makes the Christian’s
Faith Different

by Rick Ezell

Faith is used everyday, for example, sending children off to school, taking prescription medicine, eating in a restaurant, depositing money in an ATM machine, signing a contract, and driving on the highway. Faith isn’t some kind of religious experience for the elite; it’s the glue that helps hold people’s lives together.

If everyone uses faith, what makes Christian faith different?

Faith is seeing God in every situation.
Everett Alvarez Jr. was the first American pilot shot down over North Vietnam on August 5, 1964. He spent eight and a half years as a prisoner of war, the first one and a half in solitary confinement. He was beaten and tortured.

His darkest hour came after seven years in prison. On Christmas Day 1971, his captors let him read a letter from his mother that said his wife had left him.

Alvarez emerged from captivity with a new spirit. He remarried soon after his release in February 1973. He earned a law degree in night school. He held two senior political posts in the Reagan administration. In 1988, he started Conwal Inc., the executive management consulting firm that employs over 200 people and pulls in more than $15 million a year.

In an interview, he said, “The hardest part was being alone. I used to do a lot of talking. I talked to God, and I realized I wasn’t really alone.” He scratched a cross outside his hut. Christian faith does not deny the problems and challenges of life. It does not turn away from reality. But it understands that beyond the realities of this world, a greater reality exists.

Faith is no stronger than its object.
Faith is more than having faith in faith. Many have been misled to believe that if one had enough faith, they could do anything, even the impossible. But faith in what? Faith is only as good as its object. If an astronaut put his faith in a single-prop Cessna to get him to the international space station, he’d be nuts. His faith, no matter how sincere, strong, or determined, would get him no farther than the Cessna’s built-in power.

William Newton Clarke was right when he wrote, “Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.”

Faith grows out of a relationship with God.
Let’s suppose you’re shopping in a department store and a total stranger approaches you and says, “I think you should loan me $500 so I can buy a new washing machine.” My guess is you’d either ignore him or say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t do business that way.” Obviously offended, he would probably reply, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?” I can hear your answer: “Trust you? I don’t even know you!”

Trust is a relationship that can be built only over a period of time. To hand $500 to a total stranger and expect to get it back isn’t faith, it’s presumption.

But let’s suppose it is your spouse that asks for the $500 to buy the washing machine. You would give the money, not because of presumption, but because of the relationship.

The Christian faith is not based on presumption, but rather on a walk with God and a growing relationship with him.

Near the end of 1994, Scott and Janet Willis, along with six of their nine children, were traveling in their minivan on Interstate 94 toward Milwaukee. The van ran over a large chunk of metal that had broken off the back of a truck. It punctured the van’s gas tank and set off an explosion that ripped a hole through the backseat floor. Scott and Janet escaped the blaze with burns, but they couldn’t save six of their children. Seen through the eyes of a public that gasped at the enormity of their tragedy, Scott and Janet Willis faced unendurable pain, but they model an example of the depth and purity of Christian faith. They faced that tragedy, and each day since, with an undeniable trust in God. It is their relationship with God that enables them to get out of bed in the morning and enjoy the memories of their children, rather than be haunted by them.

Faith is not unique. It is as commonplace as the air we breathe. But how we demonstrate and practice that faith is unique. And that’s what makes the Christian’s faith distinct from the rest of the field of faith.

as seen in Rick Ezell’s “One Minute Uplift” weekly email devotional of February 7, 2008. Dr. Ezell is pastor of First Baptist Church in Greer, South Carolina.

Be a Blessing

Do you realize that Jesus has no arms to hug with except yours? He has no hands to heal and comfort the world with except the hands that you supply – so make a difference with your life today. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote, “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who cannot pay you back.”

God didn’t call His people to come together just to get blessed, but to be a blessing to someone else. God told Abraham he would become the father of a great nation. But notice that God also wanted Abraham to be a blessing to many. If you want God to pour out His supernatural favor in your life, reach out to bless those around you.

Amazing Things Happen

When God sends forth the Spirit amazing things happen:
barriers are broken,
communities are formed,
opposites are reconciled,
unity is established,
disease is cured,
addiction is broken,
cities are renewed,
races are reconciled,
hope is established,
people are blessed,
and church happens.

Today the Spirit of God is present and we’re gonna have church.

So be ready, get ready... God is up to something...

discouraged folks cheer up,
dishonest folks ‘fess up,
sour folks sweeten up,
closed folk, open up,
gossipers shut up,
conflicted folks make up,
sleeping folks wake up,
lukewarm folk, fire up,
dry bones shake up,
and pew potatoes stand up!

But most of all, Christ the Savior of all the world is lifted up.

taken from the opening remarks to the Memphis Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church by Rick Kirchoff, Senior Pastor of the Germantown (Tennessee) United Methodist Church

Passion for Jesus

by Wesley L. Duewel

All other passions build upon or flow from your passion for Jesus.

A passion for souls grows out of a passion for Christ.

A passion for missions builds upon a passion for Christ. When Hudson Taylor was once asked what was the greatest incentive to missionary work, he instantly replied, “Love of Christ.”

William Booth’s passion for helping the underprivileged, the derelicts of society, and for world evangelization was built upon his passion for Christ.

The most crucial danger to a Christian, whatever his role, is to lack a passion of Christ.

The most direct route to personal renewal and new effectiveness is a new all-consuming passion for Jesus.

Lord, give us this passion, whatever the cost!

Roses and Thorns

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully, and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom and also the thorns. And he thought, “How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?” Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose, and before it was ready to bloom, it died.

So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose. The God-like qualities planted in us at birth grow amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We never realize our potential.

Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them.

One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns and find the rose within others. This is the characteristic of love, to look at a person, and knowing his faults, recognize the nobility in his soul, and help him realize that he can overcome his faults. If we show him the rose, he will conquer the thorns.

Our duty in this world is to help others by showing them their roses and not their thorns. Only then can we achieve the love we should feel for each other; only then can we bloom in our own garden.

The Last Impression

A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. Things like “chalk” or “pencil,” she described, would have a gender association although in English these words were neutral.

Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, “What gender is a computer?” The teacher wasn’t certain which it was, and so divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. One group was comprised of the women in the class, and the other, of men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.

3. They’re supposed to help solve your problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize if you’d waited a little longer, you might have had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with others is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

From my computer to yours... trust you are having a great week! Looking forward to a tremendous weekend here at WFA as we share the word the Lord has for us. Come expecting the Lord to speak to your heart and change your life for His glory!