Pastor’s Blog I.XI

I believe deep within the soul of every follower of Jesus Christ is the ultimate longing to hear these words from the lips of Jesus Himself, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”  Imagine the sound and experience within your own soul to be standing before the one who gave His life on a cross for your salvation when you hear him say to you, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Can there be any sweeter words to hear?  At the end of your days to know the Saviour is pleased with how you lived out your faith and so announces this blessing for you to hear.  It just about sends chills up my spine to anticipate that very moment.

In order to experience that moment in the future it is important that you live well today.  It is crucial that your life bear fruit during these days so that one day the words you want to hear will be the words you will hear.  So, today we take what we believe and we put it into action.  We help those in need, we feed the hungry, we assist the thirsty, we visit those in hospital or prison and establish relationships with the lonely.  In other words we live out our faith in accordance with Matthew 25.

Oddly, in doing that we fulfill the vision we have established at Cornerstone to be a church that changes the world.  I have had the privilege of being associated with or part of different churches and organizations that have had some pretty significant goals.  Honestly I have never been possessed by a vision the way I am possessed by this one.

Think about it for a moment.  Right now we are raising a group of children who will grow up with this as part of their spiritual DNA.  They will have as their faith background that they were part of church that wanted to change the world.  How cool is that?  They will hoepfully grow up thinking that this is the way we are to live our lives: as world changers.

We are establishing within our teens the thought process that we go on missions trips not because it is cool but because we are part of a bigger vision to change the world.  We sponsor children in developing countries (as some of our teens are already doing) because it is the right and normal spiritual thing to do.  We help out in local ministries to the poor because that is what we as followers of Christ do.

We have moms and dads who have their spiritual heads on a swivel looking for opportunities to serve others not as a once in a while thing but as a constant thing.  They model their active faith to their children who will catch that and follow the vision.  We have dads telling their sons/daughters or sons/daughters-in-law that the coolest thing they could think of doing is to go on a foreign mission trip to serve another part of our world.  We have moms continually casting the vision for their children that the greatest thing they can do is to serve Jesus Christ in whatever capacity that He calls them but we do it as world changers.  We serve and in serving we change the world.

The year 2010 is upon us.  Doors are already open and only God knows what other doors He is planning on opening.  Are you ready?  Are you looking forward to this year knowing that it is only as we serve faithfully in this year that the future may bring those incredible words of blessing…well done.

Let’s chase the vision together.