All Things New

Hello to all! What another great weekend of worship and fellowship at Cross Pointe.

First I want to start off by saying, "thank you" for what all of you give to support Cross Pointe. Without your support I would not have been able to attend "The National Worship Leader Conference" in Leawood, KS. last week. I was truly blessed and taught through that expereince.

With that, God has had me focused on a passage that I read in a daily quiet time I had with Him last week. Let me share with you:

1 Corinthians 9:24-25

24) Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
25) Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

I have always loved the teachings of Paul. What a great testimony that he shares with us so often in the Word. For some of us we feel a deep connection to Paul because we may have a similar testimony as he does. I know for myself, before I was saved by Christ, I was not very fond of the church. I really didn't have much time for it, mainly because of the "Christians" I had met were not much different than me. I remember one time I was at a party in high school, and there were a couple of my peers who had previously tried to get me to go to church with them drinking uncontrollably and were not of sober judgement. I honestly at one time thought that maybe Christianity was 'for me' because if they could act like that, then that was a pretty awesome religion. Well, I was obviously confused at the time. A few years later after I was out of high school, I found myself in a ring of people who called themselves "Christians" as well. These people were different. Yes we are all sinners and this group was not perfect, but they were people who really seemed to care about me. A genuineness that I had not experienced with the group I hung around with in high school. It was through this new group that I found myself asking for God to forgive me of all the stupid things I had done in my life. I found myself seeking a personal relationship with Christ and asking that He would make me different than the world.

In this verse, I am reminded that we do not labor for things of this world. That our ethic of running the Christian life is based upon strict training and discipline. When I became a born again Christian I had to remove things from my life that were detaining my spiritual growth and my ability to run closer to God. Recently God has had me refocused on this. I really feel as though if we as Christ's church would bond together, grow closer, hold accountable and encourage each other on a regular basis that we would all begin to run a much stronger race collectively. But even more imporantly, is that we continue to read His word (2 Tim 3:16), pray often (1 Thess 5:16), and follow His commands (Josh 1:8) we will all grow closer to Him. We will be stronger to run the race harder than ever before.

My prayer for this week:
"Father in Heaven, lead us not into temptation this week, allow us to follow hard after you with a humble and contrite spirit. May Your name be like honey on our lips. Father through us may your love be displayed to our community. May You instill in us hearts to serve others as You command us to in Your Word. Lastly God, I pray that we are reminded that worship is not just about singing songs to you, but that it is about living our lives with a focused heart on You. In your glorious name we pray, -- Amen"

Grace be with you this week.
Mark

Clearing The Stage

Well, I have to say first that I believe God is continuing to do great things at Cross Pointe in the worship realm. Not only do I feel I have been given a clear vision for where He is taking us, but I have also been encouraged by several of your compliments. This last Sunday I truly felt like we came together in a wonderful time of worship of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is amazing how much of an impact having a wonderful intimate worship experience has on getting you off to the right attitude for a week. I am pumped about the upcoming weeks to come.

I have really been thinking about a few things in my walk with the Lord recently. Mostly around the reality of what I put in the center stage of my life. My stage has a lot of things on it: idols, my family, temptations, Cross Pointe, softball, my desires, selfishness, Jesus Christ, Christie (my wife), my dogs, my jobs, friends, fixing my house, etc.. (you get the drift). These are the things that I pay close attention to. There are always things going on in our lives that if we don't stop and take the time out of our busy days to realize, they can consume us and pull us away from having the meaningful relationship that Jesus desires us to have with Him. Last week I took a deep dive into rearranging my stage (just as I would setting up a worship set at the church). I asked myself, "where is it that I should place these things so that I can worship God to my fullest?" Well this is what I have come up with:

Center Stage: Jesus Christ - The center of my attention/focus

Front Stage Left/Right: Christie, My Family, Friends, Church Family, My Jobs

Back Stage Left/Right: My Dogs, Fixing up my house.

Removed totally from the stage: Everything that keeps me from giving my all to Jesus. Everything that keeps me from loving my family, from having integrity, and everything that does not depend on me to provide for it.

So how do you have your stage arranged? Is it too busy to tell who the Leader is? Or what you are giving your focus the most to?

This is my prayer for this week:

"Father, we desire to make you the center of our stage, by clearing off the stage of all things that have no purpose in aiding us to love You more. God we realize that true worship is not about singing, or about how great the guitarist is, or how awesome a Pastor is at giving a message, it is not about how great of a building we have, but it is all about laying our lives down to YOU! God we give you our lives for you to do your will in them, for you to use us according to the purpose you have for us. Our lives are your lives. This week as we work, study, socialize, etc. help us keep our hearts focused on You as the center." - In Christ we pray, Amen.

Have a blessed week, see you all soon.
Mark