A Personal god

Greetings from the great folks at the Red Roof Church in Bulverde, Texas.  I’m Lee Harder, the senior pastor here at St. Paul, inviting you to check out my weekly vlog and share it with your friends.  I try to have a few thoughts that might bring a smile to your face or give you something to wrestle with.  If you are searching for a church that uses Scripture to help deal with life’s concerns, then I invite you to visit the Red Roof Church.  I promise at our worship celebrations you are guaranteed to find the help and encouragement you need because it is WHERE GOD’S WORD IS HEARD and I don’t compromise His message.  We worship every Sunday at 8:30AM and 10:45 AM.  There’s plenty of room in our family for yours to join in and we would love to have you join us.
This Sunday, June 9th is the celebration of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came into the world.  The Christian Church thinks of it as the birthday of the Church.  In many ways it is.  As Jesus was about to ascend, He told His disciples to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit, the Comforter promised by the Father, to come.  He did with the sound of a mighty wind rushing into their presence as tongues of fire appeared upon their heads and they began to proclaim the mighty works of God.  The Church was indeed born as 3,000 souls came to believe that day alone.
The Christian Church has done a lot of growing since then, as well as face a great many challenges and trials.  Yet, despite all the up and downs, the Church is still here to meet even greater challenges.  You know why, because it’s not our church, it’s God’s.  The Church is the body of Christ, His bride, called to share a message of love and salvation with the world.  However, it is a message based on God’s definition of obedience predicated in His holy and precious Word, not ours.
Now, that’s big, but I can go one better.  When God made the world, it was perfect.  So was the relationship we human beings had with our Creator.  God made us to be His eternal companions.  Unfortunately, when given the opportunity to choose between doing God’s will or our own, we put the gifts of intelligence and knowing right from wrong given to us by God as He created us in His image, on the sidelines.  To quote the knight in The Last Crusade, “we chose poorly.”  We thought we could be our own gods.
Yet, even as God drove us from paradise, He promised to restore us to the relationship that existed before sin came into the world with our poor choices.  It took a long time, eons, and much patience on God’s part because we are   indeed slow learners.  Yet, the moment came.  With Jesus taking the sins of humanity upon Himself, paying the price for our disobedience, salvation and restoration were a reality.  When Jesus told His disciples, “I am with you always even to the end of the age” He laid the foundation for that promise of God’s to be fulfilled.
When the Holy Spirit came to the disciples, He not only paved the way for the birth of the Church, He made God’s promise of old true.  Where the Word of God is heard, the Holy Spirit is present in us.  That means we can come to God any time, any where knowing that we have a deep, personal, loving relationship with our Creator, Father.  We don’t need to offer sacrifices because Jesus has made the ultimate sacrifice.  We don’t need priests to intercede for us because we are all ministers, a royal priesthood, and can come to God on our own thanks to the saving action of Christ, our Lord.
Yup, birthdays are a wonderful thing, cause for celebration and happiness.  But knowing we have the relationship of love and devotion with our God, at long last restored, is even better.  It means the only thing that can make that better is when we actually come into His heavenly presence and be with Him for eternity.
For those of you who already believe  —  Happy Birthday.  For those who don’t know Jesus, I invite you to come to the promise of eternity that awaits by faith in Christ Jesus.
And those are my thoughts.  God bless and have a great week.
Pastor Lee