Well, happy new year….a bit late I know and I do apologise. We seem to get caught up in stuff don’t we. We always seem to be doing something and all of a sudden January has gone and it is the middle of February. Don’t get me wrong it is all good stuff that is filling the time up, it just seems that there is a lot of it. That is the “beauty” of being a small church, everyone of us has our fingers in a lot of pies.
Our latest venture is getting involved with the food bank programme, in particular the Holderness food bank, based in Hornsea. In the UK, 13 million people live below the poverty line, that is about 1 in 5 people. Food bank is designed to help individuals and families in crisis, through the provision of emergency food supplies.
Local professional care workers in the Holderness area refer these people with a food voucher, to the food bank centre, where the vouchers can be redeemed for their emergency food supplies, usually enough food for about 4 days or so. At the food bank centre as well as receiving food, people can get a coffee and have a chat and get help in finding other professionals who can help them out of their crisis.
You can find out more information from the following website http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects
If we are not careful though we can find ourselves being too busy doing church stuff that we forget to give God the time He deserves.
At the moment we are involved as a church in a series of talks about worship. I can commend them to you, (they can be found in the multimedia section of our site.) Worship is not just about coming to church on a Sunday and having a good sing, it’s not about being entertained by the fantastic worship band, it’s not about the latest songs or hands in the air or lying prostrate or dancing or kneeling. Worship is fundamental to who we are, we should want to glorify God, we should want to give Him the glory 24/7. If we cannot praise and worship our Father, if we cannot praise and worship Jesus then…the rocks and stones will cry out. If we cannot praise God then some other part of His creation will and you cannot get more inanimate than a rock.
The trouble is we are busy, but we must, we must, bring God our praise and worship, we must bring Him our sacrifice of praise. We need to daily lay aside our own desires our own “busyness” and come before Him, and worship Him, putting all our energy and resources at His disposal and trusting Him to guide us. Why do we do this, we do this out of gratitude for what Jesus has done for us.
Do we want to see signs and wonders, do we want to see miraculous healings, then come before your Father and give Him the worship, give Him the honour and the glory and enthrone Him with fervent passionate praise and worship, Hebrews 13v5 “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.” A sacrifice is giving someting up, we must give someting of ourselves when we come before Him…….
Worship Him in the car, worship Him at work, worship Him in the street…….but worship Him. You see it’s not about us it’s about Him. And if we don’t do it then the rocks and stones will.
My prayer today is for us all to ask God to help us experience him in a new way, ask God to help us experience a new kind of worship and let’s ask God to show us things we have never experienced before…..
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