Boldly Going to God

A new year, a new you.  A new set of days and another chance to live ‘right’.  So, what’s your resolution? Mine are the same as always— eat healthier, get to the gym more often, pay off some debt.  And here it is January 3rd and I’m not doing too well (we’ve already eaten out twice this year and I haven’t been to the gym yet!)  Each year we make resolutions in an attempt to get our lives back on track, back to where they “should” be. Each year WE try to re-create our lives into what we think the world wants us to be (healthy, thin and debt free for me)! But perhaps what our Christian New Year’s Resolution should be is to allow God to transform us into what GOD wants us to be! Perhaps our New Year’s resolution should be to proclaim with the Psalmist, Create  in me a clean heart, O God, and renew in me a steadfast spirit (Psalm 51:10). 

Imagine if WPC’s collective goal/resolution for 2008 was to become the people and church God desires us to become?  Imagine the transformation of our hearts and souls when together we seek God’s Spirit! Suddenly the burden of transformation is not on our ability to keep resolutions, but rather transformation will come from our desire to build a deeper relationship with Christ.  And when we build a deeper relationship with Christ our lives will showcase the love, compassion and light of the Savior.

So, how do we do it?  How does the family of Wilmore Presbyterian Church build a deeper relationship with Christ?  How do we unify our hearts, souls and minds so that we can be re-created into people of God—living for God, working for God and in all ways glorifying God?

The first and primary step is to become a more prayerful and prayer-filled people.  As Jim Cymbala writes in the book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, We must face the fact that for our churches and ministries to be all God wants them to be, they must be saturated with prayer.  No new revelation or church-growth technique will change the fact that spiritual power is always linked to communion with God.  If you and I are prayerless, if our churches have no appetite for God’s presence, we will never reach our full potential for him (page 183-184).  In other words: without prayer, we have no power. Without honest prayer and intentionally listening for God’s word, we will miss the transformative call of God in our lives.  So, I invite each of you to covenant to pray with me daily for God’s Spirit to fall afresh on our congregation.

This leads to the second step: allow God to speak God’s word to us.  Too often in our prayers, we are telling God what we want or what we think God should do. 

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