My phone is dying!

Have you ever heard a person cry out, “My phone is dying, my phone is dying!” and then demand that you give up your table so they can sit down and plug they phone and charge while they continue to play Candy Crush? Have you ever done something like that to another person? In this digital age, we obsess with whether our electronic devices are going to continue operating for us and is there a source of power we can tap into to make sure that we can use our digital devices.  Have you ever considered that there are ways in which we need to live so as to care for our lithium batteries so that they give us the most? The very first time you put it on to charge, there are recommended lengths of time for the battery to be charged. How we treat the battery and how often it is charge have a lot to do with how long the battery will last and what kind of service it will give over its lifetime.

The Christian life is no different in that regard. We are now in a ten-day waiting period before we are completely charged and ready to do what God asks of us as individuals and as a Church community. Without waiting and preparation for what is ahead, there could be no blessing and no source of strength for worship or blessing, there is no boom for the work that needs to happen for the kingdom of God to be established in people’s lives. If we do not prepare then we are weak. How did the first disciples prepare for the Charge of Pentecost? They prayed, they worshipped, and they focused on Jesus and on the Father, giving thanks and blessing. Without these things, we are a weak battery and ill-prepared for the job ahead.

It is why in the Easter litany, we have been asking for the believers to be filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that we can take the joy and the life that Jesus made possible to  the world, that they would see and know him and receive that life because they have seen and known Jesus in us. We are filled with the life of the Holy Spirit for that very purpose. Receiving the Spirit into our lives makes us supercharged to carry out the mission that Jesus has in mind for us. The Holy Spirit is at work in each and in all of us and has been since the very thought of our creation by the Father, creating, renewing and sustaining each and all of us as we work to seek, to see and to serve Jesus in others.

I know that when my time of ministry and life here on earth is done, I don’t want to stand before the Master, and for him to ask me, “So, how was it?” for the only response I am able to give him is, “Well… I survived”. It is not that I would fear wrath but rather that I would disappoint and make him cry because I chose not to completely offer myself to him and use everything available to me in the life of the Spirit to win people into the kingdom of God.

We follow the Lord Jesus, bodily risen from the dead and raised to the right hand of God the Father almighty that he would rule in power and with authority until such time as he is to come again. He lives in this moment, close to the Father, to make intercession for the saints (you and I) and his eyes are fixed on us and all we do and his ears hear all that we say and think. Let us ask our King of glory that we would be given the power and whatever else we need to complete the work, the mission, to draw people to him and that there would be a wonderous celebration of all the saints in light and to the pleasure of our heavenly Father.

Jason+