Good people, cheer God! Right-living people sound best when praising. Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs! Play his praise on a grand piano! Invent your own song to Him; give Him a trumpet fanfare. For God’s Word is solid to the core; everything He makes is sound inside and out. He loves it when everything fits when His world is in plum-line true. Earth is drenched in God’s affectionate satisfaction. [Psalm 33:1-5, the Message Version]
Jesus said, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my Ekklesia (church) and the gates of Hades (Hell) will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth will be lost in heaven.” [Matthew 16:18&19, NIV] In Hebrews 10: 19-25 it says, “Brothers and sisters, since we have the confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Holy Spirit help me to remember that our church was founded by Christ, established on Peter and the disciples and then grew into the assembling of ordinary people who believed in You and met together which we now think of as the churches in Acts. Church is still important for us to gather and emboldened each other, to demonstrate hospitality, and servitude so that we can grow united and strong as we conform to Your word. With so many different gifts and talents, we get a full balance or picture of what Your word means and how it is to be applied in life. Help us as a church to use the power handed down through Peter, the disciples, the early church and all the generations that followed by binding sin and Satan while loosening Your Holy Spirit into our communities. Help us to be a people who are humble, fervent prayers, and doers of Your word. Let us be willing to forgive and seek forgiveness. We will never be perfect until we are with Christ in heaven but we can continue to strive for the perfection of hope, prayer, power, and love that makes us an assembly that will change our communities and prepares for the kingdom of God.
I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 1Corinthians 1:4-9