Over the past several weeks, as I have contemplated writing this article on stewardship for the Hope Connection, the Holy Spirit has made me keenly aware of so many things that relate to what we are called to be as Christ's church. The following are a few of the "lightning bolts", as Pastor Bill used to refer to, that I have experienced.
The words of a song we recently sang at worship... "Knowing you Jesus, knowing You, there is no greater thing." As Christians, that is a fact that we have come to understand and know with our whole being. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus, it affects our prayer life, what we think about and how we use our time, talents and money. It makes us think more about our words and our actions. We are called to not only enjoy that relationship ourselves, but to be Christ to the world and invite others into a relationship with Jesus.
1. When Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman at the well, he told her about living water. John 4:7-14 - "A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks, drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
One of my devotions recently referred to the above scripture and pointed out that during different seasons of our lives our internal spiritual lives can become parched due to the stress and frustrations of living in this world. When we draw closer and seek a closer relationship with God, he is able to soothe our dry, cracked and irritated souls with His living water. We are reminded each week at Hope Church that we are to pray, to be in The Word, and that we are called to share the hope that we have with the world around us. That hope is the living water that Jesus offers to all who will accept Him – the joy of our salvation. But before people can accept something, they have to come to trust it. That is where we as followers of Christ come in. The world needs to see and experience Jesus living in us through his Holy Spirit. And when we, even as Christians, begin to feel parched and thirsty due to the effects of this world, those around us need to see that His living water is what sustains us.
2. The words of the song we now sing each week at the end of worship... "Make us one Lord, make us one. Holy Spirit, make us one. Let your love flow so the world will know we are one in You." That song led me to contemplate on some of the definitions of church – a local assembly or group of believers, or a body of individual living believers, or as the universal group of people who have put their trust in Christ. Whether as part of a local assembly, or as a part of the bigger body, we as believers are called to be the temple of God, with Jesus as our Cornerstone.
My experience as a member of Hope Church is that we are a group of believers, a local church, that truly acknowledges Jesus as our Cornerstone, and that we also understand that we are part of the bigger body of Christ. We continue to seek a deeper relationship with Him and to be changed by that relationship. Through prayer, study of His Word, and the preaching and teaching of His Word by our beloved pastors and elders in the church, we have grown as followers of Jesus. We humbly ask the Holy Spirit, who lives within each of us, to lead and guide us, and His living water has sustained us.
It is that time of year again when we are asked to think and pray about the subject of stewardship at Hope Church. We all know it takes prayer, time, talents and money to sustain our local church called Hope. Each of us has different talents and resources, which include our time and money. All are truly gifts from God and we are called to be good stewards of those blessings and to use a portion of them to serve God and serve others.
After having been led by the Holy Spirit to think on these things, it is with a grateful heart that I will continue to prayerfully consider how I will use my time, talents and money in the year to come. I have witnessed God do amazing things in and through Hope Church in the past, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us in the future. What an awesome God we have and what an honor it is to serve Him!
Your sister in Christ,
Lynn
(Lynn Joyner is a member of HOPE Church Raleigh)
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