The life blood of a participatory gathering or one on one interaction is giving testimony to what God is doing in our lives. Other things like prayer, praise, the teaching of the Word and celebration of the Lord's Supper are all important and vital but testimony encourages us, builds our faith and excites our souls. In the last several days several brethren have encouraged me. Something I refer to as connecting the dots- the Holy Spirit enabled connecting of verses or passages of Scripture where we are reading or studying something, and other related verses or passages come spontaneously to mind- is a real testimony to the working of the Spirit and our minds together. Our brother Gary has grown in this over time. This week it was seeing the link between Ephesians 1:4 "that we should be holy and without blame before Him," with Ephesians 5:27 "that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." This ability presupposes regular reading and study of the Word and, sadly, is something many Christians cannot do.
Another glorious testimony is the continuing growth of our brother Josh, who by his own confession is passive and prefers not to take on responsibility. Yet God is working powerfully in Him, transforming him into a worship facilitator, someone with a growing capacity to share the Word (his presentation on the Name of Jesus last Sunday was excellent- clear, well received, without rabbit trails) and someone with growing wisdom. God inspired him with something yesterday that lifted us out of five months of thrashing around, and probably a future five. Thank you, Jesus.
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