Our guest speaker for our Bring Your Own Friend to Large Group was Pastor Dennis from Grace Covenant church; his message was from Zechariah 3. Pastor Dennis described the setting as a courtroom where Satan was accusing Joshua of great sin. A question here was “why was Joshua dressed in such dirty garments when he was a high priest?” Pastor Dennis brought up the fact that no matter what, we will always be imperfect in the eyes of God. Still, we wrestle with the fact that we are not clean enough, but we are getting it backwards; we think that after we are clean we will get pulled up from “hell.” Instead, we first get pulled up by God’s grace then cleaned. Not only does that apply to ourselves, but to the friends we bring before God as well.
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Our first guest speaker to kick-off the semester was Fred from Williamsburg Christian Church (WCC)! Fred shared about fear from Matthew 8 - that it is fear that comes head to head with following Jesus. We fear even when Jesus is in the boat or casts out demons. Often times, our response to fear is fight, flight, or freeze. And we are stuck in the cycle of fear, self-protection, and isolation.
The answer is not to fight fear but to submit to the lordship of Christ (Colossians 1:15). Reflect about who/what holds your hope because the same thing holds your trust. We must trust in Christ and know His love. In that way we are being refined and molded to be mature in love modeled in Christ - agape. Practically, we mature in love by how we love others, as described by the commandments that go hand in hand to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. |