“Sent from God”   Read John 1: 6-13

I’ve run for as long as I can remember but at one point I lost my love for running and quit for a short period.  The last few years I picked it back up because I felt the need to lose some weight and a desire to get healthier in my ‘aging’ years!  My early morning (4:30 am) treadmill runs have become drudgery.  I have set some lofty goals, which I still have (but have had to adjust my timeline), to help me to be consistent and to help motivate me to get to the gym, but I had lost my love for running.  Thankfully I found it again.  All this being said, my goals I have set are good goals but I had to get back to ‘why’ I run in the first place - because I love it!  I had to get back to enjoying the process and journey, the goals are just ‘icing on the cake!’

There are many spiritual applications to this thought process when it comes to salvation. We must get back to embracing the process and journey. We initially come to Jesus Christ for salvation because we want to go to heaven and avoid hell and hopefully we come to love Jesus and His word, but through the course of time we can become so goal oriented as a church, as believers that we lose our first love that Jesus warned us about in Revelation chapter two.  Jesus has called us into a relationship with Him!  Yes, He desires us to keep heaven in front of us but He intends for us to enjoy the journey and to live intentionally - to not lose the joy of our salvation - to not lose our love for Him, His word and His church!

We serve Him in our little sphere of influence because we love Him!

And it is only as we love Him that we can truly be His “ambassadors” that His word calls us to be (ref. 2 Cor.5: 20).  He desires us to love Him and others.  Mankind’s greatest need is to love and be loved - this starts with knowing, accepting and continuing your faith in Jesus Christ!

You and I are now “sent from God” so that other’s “might believe” and “become children of God” through faith in Jesus Christ.

Pastor Rodney

Ecclesiastes 12:9-14