“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Eph 2:8
On Sunday I preached about grace, the idea that we are saved by no merit of our own, but solely by the grace of God. I explained that our sin deserves penalty, and the very one we sinned against was the one the decided to pay the penalty in our place. That is grace.
After the service every week, we get in a circle and have discussion (we call it Bible study breakout). My first question for the past two weeks has been: what do you think about this idea. This week one of the students eyes just lit up as he explained how he had never heard this before, and began to speak of how incredible it is! You could tell that the gospel is truly taking root inside. God is doing amazing things in the hearts of these youth in just the two weeks we have had together.
As I think about this moment it brings tears to my eyes. This is why I am here at this church. This is why we are all here, to see the gospel transform people. So despite all the challenges in front of us, despite all the tension that is present as we try to change and grow this church, we have this to rejoice in. My prayer today is that we would continue to pray for the youth and for others who are just joining our community. I pray that as we strategically move forward that people would focus on what God is doing in hearts and not what is being done to “change” things. Pray today that the church body would focus on what we can do to reach people and not what we can do to meet personal preference. This will take much prayer, so please, beg the Lord to work in hearts, including your own.
Prayers are being answered. That is my thought after reading this account of the youth this Sunday. When we started this journey, it was often said "what if our church doesn't grow'. The answer was always, if we can bring even one person to Christ, we have done a wonderful thing. Now we can pray thankgiving that this is happening .
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