2018- elEVATE
Halleluyah Glory to God!! It's the year of our Lord 2018!
"..thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere." 2Cor 2:14 (NIV)
It's great to see you here. It is great to be here! God is good, and has been good to us in the year gone by. We trust His faithfulness to abide ceaselessly in the days and months ahead, this year. Halleluyah!
Small things It's quite easy to take for granted the many mercies that freely come our way by the grace of God. Things like health, and vision, and breath, and hearing, and friendships, and love, and community, and provisions, and protection, and safety, and security, and warmth, and.... you can very well add to this list. We can become unmindful of these things, or self absorbed in considering them. On one side we could think to ourselves that so much of our plans have yet to come to fruition, despite our relentless efforts and commitments. We see all that have yet to happen, and we see all that happened which we least expected and never desired. So we could become resentful, despondent, sunken. In this state we have little or no grace left for applying ourselves to gratitude, for the 'small' things that have happened even without our thought or effort. On the other hand we could also become suddenly overconfident in ourselves as a result of our achievements-perceived or actual. So, rather than make room for thanksgiving to God, we set about planning and plotting how we could do even better. We may even yield to that age old instinctive tendency to tear down the barn so we could build an even bigger one, and leave a much grander legacy in the days ahead.
God-titude If the focus of our consciousness is always and only on ourselves; on 'ME', then we cannot but be prideful, and arrogant and unmindful and ungrateful. This is because real gratitude can only spring from a genuine appreciation of our place and contribution to this evolving delicacy called 'life'. Just staying on delicacy, when my wife (who loves cooking) sets about preparing a meal, my observation is that she does put together several different ingredients (some a bit more than others). If it was a vegetable soup, there would be the vegetable of choice, then some water, spices, meat, and some other condiments, all added at the appropriate times and intervals under a regulated temperature till the deed is done. The result? - a most inviting aroma of delightful enjoyment and nutrition. We could call it Okra soup, but it was not the okra alone that gave us the output. As long as we think it was all about our effort and qualifications and sacrifice, true gratitude would elude us. But if we would peradventure acknowledge that a 'higher hand' was involved. If we would be mindful that God is at work: around us, with us and, when we let him, in us; to bring out His best plans FOR US, then gratitude- earnest, unabashed, spontaneous gratitude, would spring from our depths to Him at every turn. Like an expert Chef, He knows what He is about. Any mind, that would acknowledge the true and evident source of all blessings, and the sovereign hand over all human affairs, would always have room enough, and grace, for gratitude. Perhaps we should term such a mindset 'God-titude'.
Lift-Up It is therefore from such a posture or position of gratitude that we make our entrance to the new year by the grace of God. For all we have seen; for all we have come to know, we have heard an invitation to a higher plain. As a church and a Voice, we hear His call to higher things. Higher worship. Higher love. Higher devotion. Higher manifestations of His power and grace. Higher help. Higher service. Higher wisdom. Higher engagements. We hear Him say- "ELEVATE!"; "Come Up Here" -Rev 4:1. Over the course of the next 365 days, as a church we would focus our hearts and minds on this holy invitation. We will seek to position ourselves rightly and accurately for His elevation. Through our sermons, bible studies and programmes, we would be anticipating glorious liftings in our lives, in our community and in the lives of everyone who identifies in one shape or form with God's call on this ministry. We will be lifting up the Word, righteousness, faith, boldness, holiness, the miraculous, unrestrained worship, love, and Jesus Christ in all His goodness; until we see as much of what He is inviting us to see, as He has ordained in this year.
And this invitation is to you as well... So come along. In 2018, let's all together ELEVATE.
In His Vineyard
Pastor Chika Edeh
