Continue the Way We Began

Some twelve years ago, I received Christ Jesus the Lord as He is: Savior of the World. He rescued me, a self-absorbed lover of self and hater of God. I had no hope in the world but rather justly deserved God's eternal wrath poured out on me in Hell. Through no merit of my own, Jesus mercifully suffered for my innumerable sins on the cross where he died. He has granted me repentance and faith. And His resurrection from the dead is now the hope of my own resurrection one day.

Today, I hear Paul's heart-felt words to the Colossian and Laodicean believers (whom he had never met) in Colossians 2:6-7. Paul was concerned that these young Christians were going to try and face the struggles of their lives with a hope that was different than the one they began with: "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." Amazing. They had been changed in the most profound way. The spiritually blind given the eyes of faith. And yet they were succeptible to believing that something other than the Savior... something without any power...could grant them understanding in how to live.

How I need to be reminded of my own succeptibility! I need my brothers to have the concern for me that Paul had for those early believers. This is where the conference title came from. We need to have fellowship in the gospel, to point each other back to the only one with power to save (initially and each day thereafter). We love ourselves and, even after being radically transformed, our sin nature still wants to preempt the power that Christ has for us after our justification. To fellowship in the gospel is to grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus and his power that is readily available to us.

Brothers, pray for the conference speakers, their messages, their spiritual lives and the fiery darts of Satan that will no doubt come due to this endeavor. Pray for the conference. Pray that many men will come from many different regional churches.

Pray that it will be an event that will have supernatural impact. Pray that it will result in . . . our growth in the ability to "walk in him" in the way we "received [him]" . . . the region in which we live being significantly impacted for the kingdom . . . the men of the church being equipped in such a way that they will live in the hope and power of the gospel . . . Christ's Kingdom will expand in Michigan . . . the church will stand so that the gates of hell will not even prevail against it.