Friday, May 2, 2008

Cleaning Out Spiritual Cobwebs

Tonight we had what we call "The Well" at my church. It's our once-a-quarter, Friday night service. We call it "The Well" because we go especially deep on these nights.... the service usually lasts two hours (sometimes even longer) and it's marked by lots of singing (our band totally rocks), lots of very deep prayer, communion, baptism, and very intimate spiritual time with the Father.

Fellow believers "get it" when I tell them about it, but whenever I explain to a non-believer that I'll be spending 2, possibly 3 hours in church on a Friday night (and I'm excited about it), they look at me as though I've lost my mind. That's OK though.

Anyway, tonight we focused in on Colossians 3:3, which says: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God". Very powerful verse. We also had several new believers (since Easter) who were ready to be baptized, and we talked about the symbolism of baptism.... symbolic of Christ's burial and resurrection.

And, the most beautiful part of all (at least to me), when God looks at each one of us, as a believer, he sees not the individual, but he sees his perfect, sinless son Jesus. And we become joint heirs with Jesus in God's eyes. (Romans 8:16) What an incredible gift.

Once again, my 'spiritual amnesia' was swept out along with the cobwebs in my soul, and I felt tears of thankfulness and joy roll down my cheeks.

I don't think we humans can ever fully comprehend how much God loves us, but I'm glad we get to grasp at least a glimpse of it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We used to have similar Friday night services back in my home church when I was in college. I miss those a lot. We called them "Concerts of Prayer". One time I had everyone who could play an instrument form an impromtu band and we played easy praise choruses long into the night. Another night we just sang hymns.

I found your site because we have a book interest in common: The Reason For God. We also have some music and other books in common that I noticed after briefly perusing your profile.

Deron Arnold
http://deronarnold.blogspot.com/