Looking Forward

I have been meeting with a group of Pastors and Christian lay leaders twice a week for prayer and hang-out time since November of 1994. This fall marks the sixteenth year we have met as the Empty Hands Fellowship. It all started in the downtown Franklin MacDonald’s Play Land. We were broken Christian men without a lot of connections across racial, economic and denominational lines. We would gather on Wednesday mornings to pray as we drank coffee and ate fast food. Our prayers through all those years were for God’s transforming power to change our City. In answer to our prayers one thing always rose to the top: Our Lord changes everything.

The Bible says He is making all things new. What that means is we are living daily with change: It is sometimes sudden as in the loss of a friend or slow like the changing seasons of the year. The other constant I realized was: I don’t like change. I’m a creature of habit and maybe that’s why I’m unhappy sometimes. God is changing things and I don’t like it. Lately I have asked myself: "am I excited about living a radical life for Jesus or the IDEA of living a radical life for Jesus?" Those are two very different things. When we pray we are believing the Gospel which says, "ask Jesus what it is He wants you to pray for Him to accomplish". His will not mine; His change not my welcome notions. I want to make sure that as we ask God to work in us that we realize He is working and He is changing us. His transforming love is making all things new. Have you noticed how People are changing and how the Culture is changing and how His Creation is changing? Jesus’ family is growing into the Bride that He, the Great Loving Bride Groom, is coming back for. We are a different Church than when we started, and that is because Jesus wants it that way. We don’t look back and wish it was like then. We look forward and can’t wait until we walk with Him in the New Heaven, New Earth and New City.

Continue praying through the coming weeks of summer expecting Jesus to change you and all of us. All praise to the God who pulls us together in the Play Lands of life to transform us into the image of His Glorious Son!

Deep love,

Roley