To the people of Mooresville Church of God we say a heart-felt "THANK YOU"! The hard work, committment and determination shown by you all has been inspiring, motivating and encouraging! You have truly shown what it means to partner with your pastoral staff to accomplish something great for God's fame, for His sake, and for His church! This is YOUR victory! Well done!
To those who visited with us yesterday in our morning worship service or at the Block Party we say a heart-felt "WELCOME"! We're so glad you spent the day with us! We want to assist you in being a part of the dynamic work that God is doing through Mooresville Church of God in these days! You've come at an exciting and important time in the life of our church! We look forward to connecting with you and serving with you!
Come Home Running
Sunday's message was simply titled, "Come Home Running". We looked at two important Bible passages:
1. The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and how God's extravagent love for us is portrayed through this powerful story of salvation, reconciliation and grace! We looked at the son's past, present and future and tried to put ourselves in his place as he is welcomed home by a loving Father!
2. An unusual moment in the life of Jesus when, with anger and indignation, He cleanses the temple of sinful activities that have been happening there. (Matthew 21:12-15) We looked at how the things He does in that temple are the same things he does in us (since we are His temple now!) when we invite Him into our lives! The 3 things Jesus always does when he comes into our lives are:
- He cleans out what shouldn't be there: Whatever sinful things exist in our life, Jesus' first desire is to clean it out and start the process of making us a "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). Jesus cleansed that temple of moneychangers and businesses that were needed, but had lost sight of their purpose and role in the temple.
- He changes the habits and traditions: Even after sin is cleaned from our lives we still have to reorient our habits and acitivites so that sin won't creep back in! Jesus changed the habits and traditions of that temple by driving out the cheating moneychangers and re-establishing His house as a house of prayer!
- He clarifies whose house it is: Jesus comes into our lives and reminds us that He bought us at a price (1 Cor. 6:20) and that we belong to Him! He went into that temple, cleaned it out, re-established healthy habits and traditions and then reminded everyone, "It's MY house"! And His house is to be a house of prayer, a place where God can reside.
God really blessed us on Sunday, September 13, 2009! We had 225 people in our worship service, we had approximately 300-400 people at our Block Party. Most importantly we had 12 people who made re-commitments of some type! God's presence and activity in our lives and in His church was awesome!
Thank you Lord for Your grace, Your extravagent love, Your provision, Your promises to us! You've blessed us and we are grateful people today! May our lives and our service be a pleasing response to Your powerful presence and activity among us!
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory!
Humbled by His grace,
Pastor John
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