Sunday Stuff

On yesterday, the Lord really showed up and showed out at the First Mount Zion Church. That was even more amazing to me, because Saturday night, I had the most uneasy feeling that I had not experienced in a real long time. It was not born out of some event, it was not really born out of a negative occurance that was monopolizing my thoughts. But this was such a mysterious feeling that I just could not figure out. I told Penny before falling asleep, that this feeling was not recognizable.

But early Sunday morning, I got to the church and made a beeline to the altar for our early morning prayer, and the Lord revealed to me exactly what that uneasy feeling was. All throughout this relocation project, I have allowed my concern for both the project and the church, to consume me to the point that I am constantly worried about each and every aspect of the project and our church. And that uneasy feeling was my ingrained concern for everything, and it was God's way of telling me to focus on ministry, and let the Lord do the rest. When I told the church about my revelation, our Minister of Music, Kadeem Turner, began playing Let Go by Dwayne Woods, and these words really stayed in my spirit: as soon as I stopped worrying, worrying how the story ends, I let go and I let God, let God have his way.

I want to be clear that my exposing this experience to you is only because I want to be as transparent as I can. For too many of our co-laborers in this Gospel ministry, put up fronts like they have it all together and that everything is going well with them, when the truth of the matter is they are catching hell just like anyone else, they are under attack from the enemy, and their situations are not as great as they make it sound like. I want to help somebody deal with the same stuff that I am going through, so that they can know that God is still working it out for his servants. GOD BE PRAISED!!!

We continued our series on the book of Ezra, with an exposition on chapter 7:1-10, but keying in on verse 10, which I tagged the sermon An Anointed Worshipper. It was 60 years since the temple was completed in chapter 6 and Ezra showing up on the scene in chapter 7. This man Ezra the scribe, was commissioned by Artaxerxes King of Persia, to lead 5000 Jews who were in exile in Babylonia, back to Jerusalem. Ezra realized that just walking back into the temple was not enough and they needed to rededicate their lives to the worship of the most high God. Verse 9 tells us that God gave Ezra all of the qualifications that he needed to lead the people back to worship, the good hand of the Lord was on him. God anointed Ezra to be a worshipper and to lead others into a lifestyle of worship. It is the job of the church to understand that God's hands are on us, and we have been anointed to worship God and lead others to the same worship. I will post the outline tomorrow.