Author: joemarino (Page 48 of 55)
The last few months have been tough. Truthfully… the last few years have been tough.
Every year that goes by seems to be cluttered with difficulty and hardship and loneliness and pain. Seasons of loss and disappointment have left my soul feeling empty and shallow and thirsty.
Last week we talked about mortification. This week we are going to talk about vivification. “What is vivification?” To vivify is to give life to something or someone. The term vivification implies adding life, quality, or energy to something.
I love listening to preachers.
It’s been this way for me since I began following Jesus seventeen years ago.
My dad (affectionally known to me as Papa) was the one who fanned this love for preaching into a roaring fire when he encouraged me to listen to a local radio station with back to back preachers.
“The illfavoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven wellfavoured and fat kine.”—Genesis 41:4.
Pharaoh’s dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry; my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life.
Something I struggle with is putting my feelings on paper.
I’ve always thought I was a good verbal processor when it comes to my feelings.
That might be true.
Last week we talked about reconciliation. This week we are going to talk about mortification. Mortification means to put off or put to death the works of the flesh. It means the battle against sin.
“Art thou become like unto us?”—Isaiah 14:10.
What must be the apostate professor’s doom when his naked soul appears before God? How will he bear that voice, “Depart, ye cursed; thou hast rejected me, and I reject thee; thou hast played the harlot, and departed from Me: I also have banished thee for ever from my presence, and will not have mercy upon thee.”
Last week we talked about forgiveness. This week we are going to talk about reconciliation. Reconciliation means to make things right with people we have sinned against. But reconciliation is both scary and hard because relational stuff is gritty.
Our mission and vision at The Well is to be a gospel centered church family of gospel communities that grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God. Three words. Gospel… Family… Mission. Those three words are the summarizing focus or values of our mission statement here as we plant The Well. And that mission and vision is rooted and inspired by what we see God doing in and through the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus in the gospels on the one hand and then what we see the Holy Spirit doing in and through the early church in the book of Acts.