Dynamite

Pastor Steven Gachenko from Harvesters Christian Church in Kenya visited us today. My, how I love that man! He is so different from the style of preaching I am used to - and much to my dismay I didn't want to hear him the first time he came. I'm an old Catholic - southern-baptist style preaching was never my gig. (I must admit, we all did our best to yell Hallelujah and Amen at the appropriate times, just so he felt more at home. ) Yet I find in this man something that draws me. At first, I couldn't figure it out. Too loud. Too...something. THEN, I got it. It was the dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit. As I listened to him last year, I was reminded of the base word in the Bible for the Holy Spirit - dynamo. The Spirit is dynamite! One of His purposes is to expose those places in us that need to be opened up to the Word, in order to be conformed. Steven is filled with the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit. You can hear it when he lays a hand on a person he's never spoken to, and prays. He pours out the love and correction and healing of God. He listens, and speaks what the Lord would say could we hear Him audibly. It's just plain powerful and compelling.

Today, he came again. To share his love with us. To tell us that he hears and feels when we pray for them. He feels us to be his dear family, though we are thousands of miles away. That, too, is powerful. Prayer should be powerful - it connects us to the very heart of God.

His message today: time to get ready! Our Savior is coming for His church, His bride. Every day should be a day of preparation. Made me wonder what I was wasting my time doing. I was certainly convicted of time wasting - TV is limited from now on. It doesn't really help me get my work done.

Time to be about daily preparation. His question - one we need to ask every morning: Are you being changed by the Word daily? Conformed into the image of Jesus - loving more, helping more, being more like Him? Jer: 6:16, 17. He is calling those who have fallen away to come back to the right path.

Matt 7:13, 14 God is calling us back to the power of the Word. Flesh and blood will not reap everlasting life - only the spirit. Are we feeding the spirit?! He reminded me, in a most engaging way, that it is a narrow road we are called to walk down. Our flesh is to be squeezed out, to remove those things that keep us from walking this path. The more we feed the flesh, the fatter we become, the harder to find and keep walking down that road.

And then, the final point that pierced my heart: knowledge without faith won't help. We still sin when there is no faith in the area we are being tempted. I have always considered myself a person of strong faith. Until I looked in the mirror of the Word this morning and realized I haven't been applying it lately. I speak faith, but don't hold the mirror up before my own sin.

I am thankful for that man from Kenya. While I don't think I would care for his style on a weekly basis (I love my pastor's heart for the Word and the way his face glows when he shares with us), I do appreciate the message he brought for my heart today. I pray to be found faithful at Jesus' appearing, and I believe I will be found more so since hearing this particular message.

Come. Lord Jesus. Come.