As an Eldership & Pastoral Team, we sought the Lord and felt God put “Patient Endurance” on our hearts. In the world we live in today, the expectation and the norm are instant gratification. Whatever we want, whatever we need – it is available the same day and at worst, the next day. And although this has made life convenient, sometimes – oftentimes – the ways of the world are not the ways of God.
… this calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
Revelation 13:10
This Scripture is found in the book of Revelations, where the Apostle John is describing the end times beast and how it was waging war on the people of God. It was ferocious, relentless, powerful, and winning, but God, in the midst of the horrors reveals the solution and response required from the saints, “patient endurance and faithfulness”.
In 2019, Wanda Fost spoke at the Family Weekend, and she prophetically warned us that there is a spirit of enticement that is coming for the church. This has been something that we have taken seriously, yet it is still a threat that I do not believe is over.
In Matthew 9:18-26, there are two accounts of Jesus healing the sick. The first account is of a synagogue leader – someone who was most likely against Jesus. Jesus was disrupting the everyday practices of religion and as a synagogue leader it was causing conflict. Yet, in this account we see that the “synagogue leader came and knelt before him (Jesus)”.
… a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”
Matthew 9:18
This synagogue leader came rushing to Jesus, not thinking about what others would say or think because… “my daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live”. If there was any hope to bring life back to one of my children, would I not do anything I can?
The second account of healing happens while Jesus is enroute to heal the synagogue leader’s daughter:
…a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “if I only touch his cloak, I will be healed”.
Matthew 9:20-21
A woman who would have been considered an outcast: bleeding made a woman unclean and anyone she touches unclean as well. If anyone touched this woman they would no longer be able to participate in the celebrations and ceremonies. Not only was she not allowed to be part of family and cultural celebrations, no one would want to risk helping her because they would then be disqualified as well.
Two very different people: a synagogue leader’s daughter – a family of prestige, honour, and respect, and an elderly woman who had been bleeding for twelve years – an outcast.
Two very different people – but with the same result. Both were healed.
Two very different people with seemingly nothing in common, total opposite ends of the class spectrum, yet with one thing in common: a desperate brokenness within. This shared brokenness resulted in similar results: healing.
It is the broken that run to Jesus. They can look like the most noble, but they also look like the lowliest. But it was what was within that counted: brokenness.
It was the Pharisees that stopped people from coming to Jesus.
It was the fine that looked at Jesus from afar.
But it was the broken that ran to Him.
Who will the Lifespring family be?
I believe our greatest challenge in 2024 will be complacency. I have no conviction that we are Pharisees (stopping others from coming to Jesus). But I do have a conviction that as the people of Lifespring, with the favour of God over this church family and our lives, we are doing OK. But OK is neither Pharisee nor broken, it is what the Scriptures call, “luke-warm”. We are neither cold, nor hot. We must fight against being cold and luke-warm, we need to be on fire for the Lord. And that means touching the things of God.
Patient endurance, remaining faithful, pressing onwards to loving God and loving others. There is no turning back, there is no sitting still. We don’t know what Patient Endurance looks like over 2024, but we do know that where there is God-given purpose, there is always God-given provision.
As a leadership team we will fast & pray for 2024. Please consider joining us for the entire month of January. We will fast and pray to enter 2024 asking God for His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We will desperately seek and ask God for His purposes to succeed in our personal lives and this church family. Success in the wrong area is failure. A fast is a gift to the king, so give what is worthy of the King!
The focus of this year’s fast will be prayer for spiritual endurance.