LETTER FOR MAY 1994
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Dear Friends,

My mind has been dwelling on something that I believe to be important, not only for us individually as Christians, but also for the whole well-being of the church of God, and for the growth of the church and the spreading of the Gospel.

The thought is this, that when we become Christians we become part of the family of God and have a place and purpose to fulfill in the family.

The concern I have is this. When we become Christians we come to Jesus with a sense of our own need. When Jesus calls us to faith, we are wonderfully blessed in many ways. We know peace of conscience because all our sins are blotted out. We know the love of God. We rejoice in the grace we receive each day, and the glory to come. We know the blessing of the Holy Spirit bringing us into a closer relationship with Jesus.

We come to church to be blessed. Sunday worship is so very important because we want to be blessed through the fellowship, and the spiritual uplift, and further experiences of Jesus. We come to satisfy our need, to be helped and to know God's comfort and love.

This is good, and if our fellowship at St. Paul's, the Sunday worship and the activities, are meeting our need in this way, let us thank God, who has made it so. However there is something else we need to consider. The Apostle Peter puts it like this in the second chapter of his first general letter - the particular verse is verse 9. This verses says this, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, that you may declare the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

The words I would like to underline for us all in this verse is "that you may declare the praises of him who has called you . . .". It is good to be blessed in the fellowship and worship of the church, but there is more to being a Christian than having our needs met, and joy and peace filling our hearts. There is also that we are called to be Christians to declare the praises of Jesus.

What this means is that we are meant to be active in the church and to commend Jesus in our lives, to make him known, and all the blessings he has won for people by his sacrifice and resurrection. This is to declare his praises. We exalt Jesus and make his wonderful love and excellence as a Saviour to be known by others. The fellowship of the church exists for this. We are part of that fellowship.

We are living stones (1 Peter 2:5), and we are meant to live for Jesus and his church. As living stones we are being built into the spiritual house, which is the church, and as a stone of the building, we have a part to play in the maintaining, building and running of the church. We are a holy priesthood - priests are meant to serve their God, and as every Christian is a priest in this sense, we all must be serving the Lord. As priest we offer spiritual sacrifices. These are services for Jesus, who calls us to set ourselves apart for the work in his church he wants us to do. We are a holy nation and a people belonging to God (verse 9), and this means our lives belong to God to do his service.

If we appreciate this, it will change the way we come to church, and use the church and its fellowship. We shall still come to receive blessing and love and help and strength and enjoyment. But we will also come to worship on Sundays, and to other activities with the spirit of Samuel when he replied to the call of God by saying and meaning it, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening".

We need to come to God in our own private worship and the public worship, not simply for our own blessing and enjoyment, but to wait upon God for what he has for us to live and do for him; and then we need to be ready to take up that service or ministry.

Each Christian, as a living stone in the building of Christ, will have something which Jesus has laid aside for him or her to do. Together with this, there needs to be the desire to be strengthened and led to live for Jesus, daily waiting upon him for his direction and the seeking faithfully to carry out that way of life.

It may be that most of the time this simply means that we seek to glorify Jesus in all we do and say, so that the glory of Christ may shine out in some small way from our lives and words. Other times God may have some work for us to do, or some regular service in his church to fulfill.

In view of all this, may I ask you to come to church Sunday by Sunday with this in mind. May I beseech you to come to church to listen to God and wait upon him to hear all he has to say to you, and then to live it. If God communicates some service may I urge you to be prepared to accept that sacrifice, and serve the Lord.

In a word, may I ask you all to come to the Sunday services week by week with this desire in your heart that God will speak to you and tell you what his purpose is for you - that you may come desiring to be told how you may be able to set forth the praises of Jesus.

The church is a place of blessing, and God means it to be so. We need spiritual strengthening week by week, and day by day. But the church is also belonging to the Lord, and his means for spreading his Gospel, and the nourishing his people. We are servants of Jesus to fulfill this roll in the church.

In closing are you living like this. If you feel you are falling short in some way, please seek the Lord for his help. The church is not only a place of blessing, but also a place for service for Jesus, or a place from which we go out to serve Jesus.

Your servant for Christ's sake,