Where are you?

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” - Gen 3:9

Adam went into hiding from God because he was afraid. Hiding is something we have become very good at. It is often our first reaction.

We hide when hurt
We hide in shame, because we have been found out
We hide in grief
We hide in fear

At the very time we need help we choose to be alone and so often we leave people to be alone. Alone in their hurt, alone in the shame, alone in their grief, alone in their fear.

God goes looking, calling, Where are you?

Then he sent his Son looking for you, shouting "Where are you?". His exploration for you brings something Adam never experienced - grace. Something you did not deserve. It came as a complete surprise. Healing for hurt, honour for shame, joy for grief and assurance for fear.

But most of all that you never need know the crushing weight of loneliness because Jesus did it for you.

Today Jesus says to you Where are you?  Don't go hiding!

Trust in his timing

Kicked off the our new teaching series - Draw Near at MKCC on Sunday - Trust in his timing. Click here if you cant see the video.


Draw Near - Trust in His Timing from MKCCpreaching on Vimeo.

• None of us know what the future holds but we know that our God holds the future in his hands.
• Before Jesus we are caught in a sort of religious groundhog day. Sin – scared – sacrifice – survive - repeat.
• Now it is no longer us working to appease an angry God but God that is working in our lives.
• There is now no longer any need to be scared to come to God or to pass our own relationship with God to another “more spiritual” man. Jesus shouts to a people far away draw near
• There is no more sad sight in the world as a man or a woman who have found the greatest treasure in the world – Jesus and yet don’t value it above everything else.
• I'm a pastor, I help to lead a great church but its not the greatest treasure – Jesus is!
• The mystery of time is controlled by the plans of an eternal God.
• One of the problems with reading God’s word is that if we are not careful we don’t grasp the depth of time. In a few verses we can jump from promise to fulfilment but what took us a few seconds to read to days, weeks, months, years even decades to happen.
• One of the problems of this type of faith is that it never deals with doubts, even suggests that doubts are wrong.
• The unknown creates doubts. Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is trusting God despite those doubts!
• Waiting is not incidental to faith. Waiting is the DNA of faith.
• Recognise that God is in control, even when it seems He has forgotten you.

42,360

Starting with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah, the Holy Spirit takes time to list, in Ezra 2, every clan or tribe that became the pioneers of a reborn nation.

Not only family names but the number in each family in total 42,360. Then the number of animals then what they gave towards the mission.

And some say God is not interested in numbers. This passage along with others would seem to dispel that notion once and for all.

Numbers and the people (and the animals) behind the numbers were so important to him that he ensured they were recorded for us to read 1000's of years later.

That's one of the reasons we have prayed specifically for a number in our church (MKCC) for many years. We prayed that we would see 1000 people gathering each Sunday to celebrate Jesus together and then scatter to proclaim Jesus in their world. The end of 2013 saw the answer to that prayer.

Now we have a new number we are praying for in 2014 - 2000. Two Thousand people to be meeting together being equipped to become fully devoted followers of Christ.

In the words of Perry Noble, Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church: "Every number has a name, every name has a story & every story matters to God"

Birth

I have started a new reading plan on YouVersion today - For the Love of God. It will take me on a journey through the book whose words have been gifted to us by God himself. It continues to shape and transform my life, often on my part stumbling and stuttering but always encouraged by His bursting Grace.

Today I read of new beginnings or new birth.

The birth of the world - Genesis 1
The rebirth of a nation - Ezra 1
The birth of Jesus - Matthew 1
The birth of the Church - Acts 1

Out of NOTHING he created a universe.
Out of DEFEAT he grew a victorious nation
Out of the SILENCE he spoke his most beautiful word - JESUS
Out of WEAKNESS he empowered His church to take the world.

God's seems to like birthing things when least expected.