There can be a lot of talk about grace and righteousness and indeed the more preaching and teaching we hear that is devoid of legalism the better. But I find myself getting twitchy when it all remains theoretical with no hint of grace in action. Grace where the rubber hits the road. Grace where it begins to change lives! There are some such glorious amazing verses in the Bible that we can only begin to dream of coming to pass in our lives - yet it must be the will of God! Or why else would it be in the Bible?!
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe." - Ephesians 1:18-19
"Surpassing greatness of His power towards us" - what does that actually mean in action? I think that surpassingly great power is evident in the life of our great High Priest - Jesus Christ. I've been impressed recently with the word; "Immediately" in the Gospels.
"Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him ... immediately his leprosy was cleansed." - Matthew 8:3
"Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him" - Matthew 20:34
" ... she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak ... Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction" - Mark 5:29-30
One touch! And everything changed. I love this song from Grapevine;
Just one touch! But surely we shouldn't only limit that historically to Jesus Himself and maybe His disciples. Surely that is the legacy of the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe! One touch - and everything is changed!
That's why I love Rob's sermon; ""The Administration Of Healing Authority" - it changes the emphasis from the traditional charismatic praying and pleading with God to heal someone to "just one touch". I was listening to one of Rob's most recent sermons and he spoke about how our focus and emphasis shouldn't be hoping for more signs and wonders and instead how to increase in our understanding of the glory and wonder of God's grace and lavish unconditional love towards us. Just one touch. That's all it takes to open our eyes to the understand of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us at the Cross!
1 comment:
yes yes yes.
mark stibbe's RiverCamp sermon 08 on Just One Touch from the King.
Also Godfrey led the first evening of 08 Havant conference. We weren't allowed to record thew songs..which are available anyway, but we were allowed to record what he said between songs...may be I'll put them up. it was great.
Glad you like him too. When the men went away on 2 weekends we blitzed ourselves with his stuff.
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