Thursday 12 September 2013

September 2013 - Stirring Up Your Spirit

Pssst!  Hey, have you heard …?  We have a conference at the end of the month. ;-)

While there have been lots of ponderings I have been having lately, the Tree of Life Conference has been on my mind quite a bit.  The Tree of Life is found in our Bibles at the beginning, middle and the end (Genesis 2-3, Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 2 & 22).  The Tree of Life is based in the grace of God.  It was offered to Adam and Eve without restriction.  It is offered to us today in the same way in Christ.  Jesus dies on a tree to give us free access again to the Tree of Life.  It’s life never fades (“leaves never wither”) and it is continually producing fruit and healing.

It is with this grace of God in mind and spirit that I am approaching the conference.  I hope others will too.  Many people go to charismatic Christian conferences in an attempt to get something they don’t have (or perceive themselves not to have).  Some even travel from conference to conference continually trying to gain something.  My heart for the Tree of Life conference is that it be the “un-conference” of us all growing in what we already have.  Consider a couple verses of Scripture:

2 Peter 1:2-4 (NKJV)  Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

2 Timothy 1:6-7 (NKJV)  Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

The verse that God gave me for this conference is on the front of this month’s bulletin (Haggai 1:14).  I believe God is stirring up our spirits to join in building His house.  He is building up His church, us, to be the dwelling place He desires for His Spirit in this day (Ephesians 2:22).  He is stirring up our spirits to join in the work because His house is built with the living stones of people (1 Peter 2:5).  Deep is calling to deep — Spirit to spirit.  The Spirit and the Bride say come … the time is now.

Journeying with you,

Pastor Merril