Book: Matthew

You have no idea what one single act of obedience can set into motion, when you obey what our good God puts on your heart.

On the cross, God with us died for us. The One who was present was now absent. The Word that became flesh & died became the Savior who rose again & was glorified.
God came near but is still far. God came to our present but remains in our future. Jesus is the antidote to absence.

We want a Jesus who accepts the life we like to live. We want a Jesus who blesses us with material goods. So, we shape Him into our likes. But when we form Jesus into our own image, He is not Jesus. When we make Jesus present in our image, Immanuel may become absent.

Don’t make worship about conjuring presence or catching the mouse in its trap. Make presence about lifting God up so high above you that His presence becomes impossible. Then, when He is the focus of your praises & elevated far above you, in His proper place of worship, He will satisfy you & fill you with joy more abiding than any manufactured or machine trap of presence. Worship’s chief end is to glorify God. By glorifying Him in worship we will enjoy Him in it as we never have before.

So if you need to answer the question, Is God present at my church? ask yourself the question, Are there Christ-followers at church? If there are, then Christ is there. As the church loves one another, God abides in us, & we can see & experience Christ in one another.

Tracy Marsh brings the challenge to us all from Matthew 7:24-29 on this Sunday we honor our Graduates.

If Jesus really rose from the dead, than He is who He said He was—we must tell because everyone needs to know! We need to go to the ends of the earth to tell them JESUS LIVES, JESUS LOVES, & JESUS SAVES, even if it means that we risk some-thing to do it.

You carry the cross when you take the step of reaching out to someone, braving the awkwardness, of telling them about Jesus. … Are we willing to pick up the cross so that others can experience it?

Jesus never ever gives up on you—His grace to forgive is greater than you could ever imagine, and His power to restore the life that is ruined by sin is beyond your wildest hopes.