Overflow

I was supposed to read through the upcoming message for this Sunday and next Sunday, perhaps to come up with a video of my own to make available online.

Instead, I was just so unnerved by all that I read. I didn’t finish it. I needed to type something else. And, maybe, this will be what comes out in video.

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Are you too fixated on your words that you don’t seem to be aware of what’s in your heart?

Let us never make the mistake of prioritizing the words we speak over our identity. Let us avoid the trap of putting the tongue over the heart.

There’s a live-giving way, even to declarations. And it is certainly not found in putting some sort of priority in trying to sound fresh and new.

If we are to go anywhere as a church, we ought to keep our focus and attention on Christ and Christ alone. His finished work guarantees so much more than us receiving opportunities as defined by the limited borders of this reality – no, the abundant life He so passionately promises and delivers on is one of infinite and eternal value. We do not just sit and wait on opportunities more than actually creating the opportunities ourselves!

Everything else is vanity. Filthy rags. Rubbish. Garbage.

I know our church can do better. I know we can keep the focus on Christ and get so much more done. I know we can actually keep things fresher by getting people to hear different perspectives on Christ and how His finished work has an infinite and eternal effect on our family, beyond the health and wealth!

Our messages seem to be continually laced with one or both of these poisonous, twisted lies:

That you can speak forth whatever you want and it will be done, in Jesus’ name, and
That we will have abundant, rich and healthy lives here on earth.

On the contrary, this is what I believe:

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. We are full and overflowing with Christ, and so our mouth speaks, and our brains think, and our bodies move.
We don’t have guaranteed health and wealth but an absolute, inhuman, alien peace which goes beyond all understanding.

We have Christ, who is our immovable object, and our unstoppable force. My heart – This heart, which Christ paid so dearly for – is full of this Truth, and I simply refuse to allow this this priceless Gospel to be cheapened.

Again, our church can do so much better! In our efforts to maintain a status of excellence, we’ve become relics. In our paltry attempts to look and sound fresh, we’ve become a mile wide, and an inch deep. It’s embarrassing.

Fellow bearer of Good News, I say this with great love and respect: It is Christ who, by being Perfection, has made us perfect. It is Christ, who, at the end of Time and therefore for us in and out of time, makes all things new.

Christ is freedom from fear, and peace in all perspectives.

Christ is perfect love, and Christ is hope which serves as the anchor for our souls.

Solus Christus. Soli Deo Gloria. Didn’t you guys say that once?

There, I said it. May the good Lord bless and keep us all in the unity of Peace.