Home from Missions Trip

On returning from Haiti, I believe I have a larger picture of who God is.  God convicted me of some things this week.

The context of our lives is shaped and influenced by many things.

• politics, wars-- freedom is not free, relationships with the people around us, our place of origin, the amount of wealth-- or lack thereof, societal status, ones place within the culture.

All leave a lasting effect.  We are shaped by them.

In the Book of Acts, chapter 5 we see the development of the early church.  All these things were influences then as now.  People are people.

==There is a way in which God wants to change who we are, replace the "who" as we have been shaped with what we were meant to be.

Reading Acts 5: 12-16  we see people seeking healing simply by positioning themselves so that the shadow of Peter would fall upon them.  The apostles were casting shadows from the Almighty who was breathing life through them.

==What kind of shadow am I casting?

Is it my own? Am I merely hoping that as I cast my shadow good will come of it? Or is it God working through the Holy Spirit in my life?

==No man can change the culture for the Good if God be not in him.

Even with a church on every corner, our shadow is shrinking.  Why?  We still have the Holy Spirit, but our tanks are getting empty. We don't see Christians living under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit.  We need to get to the realization that we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The shadow we cast says something about the presence of God in us.

I believe God's people should be in a place that represents such power of God that all who fall under our shadow are affected by it.

Let's get first things first.

Let's be sure that things are right within us.  God will do something so big it will take our dream and blow it away.

Say of yourself:  Holy Spirit, you are welcome in this place!

Pastor Johnnie Blair

Sunday morning