Dear Friend:
At the close of each year the top questions that dominate our thinking as believers are usually the same:
What is God saying to the church for the year 2013?
Added to these basic inquiries are, of course, our own personal challenge and spiritual desires to advance the kingdom of God. It is always a challenge to keep immediate personal demands in proper prospective to our spiritual commission, which is the salvation of souls.
In the past days and weeks I have given much thought to the condition of the church, our nation, and the nations of the world.
We are always praying that the church will be ready for the onslaught of evil, prophesied in the last days, that wicked men have devised through satanic desires. Their plans are ultimately to hinder and stop the gospel message. Always the same old mission against the redemption God provided through Jesus Christ. We are aware that the enemies’ schemes are not new to this day and age. We also know that God’s victorious outcome is fixed and established. Our part, however, is dependent upon our surrender and dependence on the spiritual gifts God has given to serve Him and His purposes.
We even know our enemies devices: passivity, deception and ignorance. Knowing his tactics should give the church a great advantage. Our Father has truly given us all spiritual gifts and necessary equipment to enforce satan’s defeat and bring glory to God’s holy name.
Following Jesus by submitting to God’s leading is a divine path which leads believers from a place of complacency and false comfort to courage.
As we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, life will become an adventure demanding different levels of courage that will stretch each of us to a new maturity of faith.
The Holy Spirit, (Spirit of truth), has spoken that this year, 2013 will demand extraordinary and consistent change.
We will find ourselves longing for the courage we need to take risks, to follow God with a greater passion, and to submit to the Lord’s will more quickly and confidently than ever before. Moving from comfort to courage will cause you to ask yourselves questions about choices you have made and why you made them.
Courage always demands stepping out of the known into the unknown. Confidence will be based on the Holy Scriptures and the voice and presence of Almighty God.
Each of us will have areas in which we will need to take a step of courage and leave behind old fears which have controlled our lives.
The church and the world have been seduced by a spirit of slumber causing them to be inactive and complacent but the Spirit of Truth announces at this very moment the church is being awakened and called to action.
Here is a list of ways to pray for each other in these times:
Our ultimate desire is to openly and boldly declare with the apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the body, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20)”.
If you are looking for advice on how to grow more comfortable or want easy short cuts to maturity in faith, you won’t find it here. But if you are ready to be challenged and to face situations that will demand fresh courage and stretch your limits…then
Welcome to BCOC ….2013!
In His Love,
Pastor Mary Jackson
Read below what the Lord spoke to Joshua many years ago:
Joshua 1:5-8 (NAS)
5“No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6“Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7“Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. 8“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 9“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”