Magnifying God!
What does it mean to be a church that loves God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?
Craig McCorkindale explains:
"A mark of a healthy church is seen in its love of God, a responsive love (1 John 4:10). The Westminster Catechism (a very old, but great document of faith) describes the end or purpose of humanity is that of ‘glorifying God and enjoying him forever’. Another way to think of this is that all people were made to worship. Right worship is of the one true God. Wrong worship is of the many fake gods and false idols (Acts 17). You don’t have to look too far in our culture to see the worship of many created things – sport, sex, money being easy targets.
God doesn’t leave us in our idolatry, our false worship, our sin. He sends Jesus, the one true Worshipper, to save us from idolatry for worship of the one true God. In Jesus is the pattern for worship and the power to worship, the power of the Holy Spirit.
We, as the people of God, worship with our whole lives (Rom 12:1); we worship corporately when we come together on Sundays in prayer, praise and submission to the Word. But our worship extends far beyond just singing or Sundays. Love of God captures the extent of how we worship. It is worth noting that love includes not just our obedience or actions, but our emotions. As above, we are to glorify and enjoy God.
God is love. So in loving God we are imitating God; albeit it imperfect imitation as we await the return of Jesus, the one true Worshipper. On that day we as perfected creatures in Christ will worship our Creator and Saviour. Until then Col 3:16 captures our responsive love for God; ‘Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the
Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.’ Seeking to grow our love for God is a chief concern of the Magnification ministry."
We are all responsible to promote love for God in our community. However Craig will take a particular responsibility for this as our Magnification Minister. He will work with other staff and leaders (esp. Mel at 10am and 6pm) to ensure our services magnify the greatness of God for all to see. (yes this is one of a number of roles Craig will take - for example we mentioned ‘Maturity’ last week. All the staff will take a few areas of responsibility each to help us grow as a balanced healthy church).
Grace and Peace,
Mark