Sunday 3 August 2008

It's hot in the desert!

It’s high 40’s here, and Angie & I are here with the Gateway Church while Clive and Heather are away on vacation.

I always find that this place provokes me deeply. Here is a nation where race really matters, where the passport you carry makes all the difference. It will determine if and for how long you can be here, and to some degree how much you will earn and where you will live etc.

And I am provoked because I am reminded of Jesus’ passion for the nations – all of them, without exception. He died to redeem people from every nation to be gathered as one to Himself as His bride. He is the Lord of the nations! He will be honoured by all the nations: Psalm 86:9 All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.
How special then, to see churches like Gateway being counter-cultural and gathering as one from different nations and backgrounds to worship Jesus and declare His great worth! As they, and we do that, the Kingdom of God, the ‘royal activity of God’ (as Michael Eaton puts it) is being displayed for all to see! The Kingdom has come! It is here! It is among us! And it will come to completion when people from every nation will worship together at the marriage supper of the Lamb!

Your Kingdom come! And your will be done in our lives, and at Kings as we reject prejudices and no longer insist on our own preferences. That way we will get to see Jesus build the kind of church that he is after!

See you back in Norwich next Sunday,

Goff

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