The following blog was written by Pastor Jon- Walking humbly before the Lord. That has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks as we have begun this wonderful venture we like to call Progression. Not that I choose to speak for the Progression worship team, but I know from my understanding I am growing in my faith journey which guides me closer to walking humbly before the Lord. I have a few thoughts this morning based upon our work together as Progression. Let me start with what Progression is not. It is not church business as usual. Far from it, Progression is our attempt to duplicate the experience of the early church, which took time for the apostolic teaching, for the breaking of bread (normal meals as well as the Eucharist), for the purpose of fellowship, and for the gathering to pray. In this context we seek to walk humbly before the Lord, not using this as some earthly slingshot into a new reality. It has become a time for worshippers to gather together to share in the four equal parts of this time spent together in order to come closer to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We don’t have all the answers-in fact, we don’t need to have the answers-for when we walk humbly before the Lord, we let Him guide us and answers seem irrelevant. We wrestle with the pressures of our daily lives, and we realize more of life “sticks to our feet” than we would like it to be doing. We have “stepped in it” more often than we ever thought possible and for the reasons most unknown to us, we choose wrong choices more often than right choices. We fall short of the glory of God by our rebellion of sinful choice. Our pride puffs us up, even to the point of being proud for our confused choices. I’d like to offer a new rebellion. A rebellion based upon rejection of the ways of this world. A rebellion that, instead of driving us to new heights of status or achievement, can become a rebellion that drives us to our knees in the presence of Jesus. A new rebellion that takes Micah 6 to heart: “It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously!” (Micah 6:8 MSG) So it is a time for humbly walking before the Lord. It is a time for our actions to speak louder than our words. It is a time to sit at the feet of Jesus and let Him guide our paths. As I recall from last week’s Good Shepherd analogy in John’s Gospel-maybe we just have to be content with letting Jesus be the Shepherd, and not us. Maybe the best thing we can do, as the Casting Crown song “What This World Needs” suggests, “Is to simply get out of the way.” Come join us as we humbly walk before the Lord at Progression. 7:11 PM Thursdays. |