In Him We Live and Move...

This past Sunday, we were commissioned by our home church and 'sent out' with their blessing into our new ministry work with The Sanctuary Pickering. We feel very blessed that we have the love and support of our home church in this new adventure that God has led us to journey on. It is truly an awesome thing when local churches are able to see and grasp the BIG picture --- and that is to acknowledge that we are all enlarging the same Kingdom, that we are all giving ourselves away for the same purpose, and that we are all serving the same Master!

Acts 17:28 (NIV) --- "For in Him we live and move and have our being..." --- was prayed over us as three of our pastors laid hands on our family. It was a significant moment for us as it marked the official end of fifteen fruitful years of ministry at Morningstar. It was meaningful as well in that the three pastors who laid hands on us have, in one way or another, significantly played a part in training, shaping and molding us into the people that we are today! It was a bittersweet moment indeed.

I love that whole section from Acts 17:24-28 so I will quote it here:

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.' " ---Acts 17:24-28 (NIV)

As Charles Colson says in his book Loving God --- "It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience." And so we journey on --- with great anticipation of the things that God wants to accomplish through us!

"Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you." ---Joshua 3:5 NIV "There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope when you were called — one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." ---Ephesians 4:4-6 NIV