Sunday, February 10, 2008

This is truly the day that the LORD has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it! Today has been a wonderful day. We are now in Stewardship Month at Cornerstone. We are off to a pleasant start!Of course, giving is usually low when I am teaching and preaching on stewardship. However, it is a little better than usual and I praise God for that. Today, I preached from Matthew 25:14-30 with the message entitled 'I Can't Afford to Hold It'. I can honestly say that it was the most difficult passage of scripture I have ever dealt with expositionally in my over 14 years of preaching ministry. Personally, parables (though they are a joy to read) are so difficult for me; and it is so difficult to find good study material on parables. I have many books on the parables, including Spurgeon, J. Dwight Pentecost, Weirsbe, and others--but it is just something that challenges me.

However, through much prayer and studying until 4 in the morning, the Lord smiled upon the message! Incidentally, 2 people came forward--one for baptism and the other by Christian experience, along with her little girl. Thank God for 3 new people!!!

It is both astonishing and humbling to see God move in HIS own time and way. I have had my share of frustration in pastoral ministry; however, God is blessing little by little and teaching this 29 year old young man along the way-some very valuable and priceless lessons I won't have to learn for the first time 5 years from now. Better now than later. It is so amazing to see how God --through allowing me to let some things and people go and focus upon the power of prayer and a life of total stewardship and surrender--He is teaching the people we have how to rely upon Him to expand HIS own kingdom. I am a living witness that God is doing it again (GIDIA!)

There is a VERY long road ahead. I hope and pray that these blogs do not exude any inkling of an idea that I feel that we have ARRIVED. No. Attendance still bothers me, commitment is still NOT what it should be, everything including the giving-I would love to be better. And--I would love for us to have our own facility where we can be free to do more ministry to the masses. I am praying for all of this and will continue to do so. Until then--I will try my best to chart the progress we have made. Last year, we had about 5 people who came forward for the ENTIRE year; this year thus far we had about 10 in January, and about 4 have already come in February. Most importantly--they are sticking through our follow-up and they are already getting involved in serving and stewardship. I'd be a fool not to see this as not only a milestone, but purely as God's own doing partnered with our commitment and faith. I am trusting God to do just what He said!!!