Notes from Sunday

If you missed church yesterday, you missed a wonderful message!  Yesterday began OnePrayer 2010.  If you don't know what OnePrayer is, 1200+ churches from around the world are uniting globally to Share.Serve.Give.  This year's theme is "Unstoppable".  We watched a video message from Scot Longyear, a pastor from Maryland Community Church in Indiana.  He talked about the Unstoppable Presence of God.  Here are some notes from his message:  

Have you ever wondered if God is everywhere, why does it seem like He is no where?

Mark 6:45-52.  Discussed the disciples after just witnessing the miracle of feeding the masses with a loaf and bread and some fish and being halfway to Bethsaida facing a headwind and then seeing Jesus walking on the water.  

Several statements made by Scot really stood out during his teaching on this passage.  

Some of the toughest places to be is halfway there. vs. 47 the boat was in the middle of the lake.   We start something, whether it be a long trip, dieting, a battle with an addiction, getting out of debt, etc. and we struggle through the first half of it and then halfway there we realize that all the struggles we have just went through and we are only halfway there.  Have you just wanted to give up at this point?

Jesus had to reintroduce himself to the disciples.  vs. 50 "Take courage!  It is I.  Don't be afraid."  Many times in our lives, we wander away from God, but to just know that He is always there...he may just have to reintroduce Himself to us when we least expect it.  We focus so much on the circumstance instead of Jesus because we look at the wind and waves more than we do at God.  I have a mental image of God waving his arms and jumping up and down like a little kid trying to get your attention..."HEY!  Remember me!  I'm always here!  I LOVE YOU!" 

Another statement was: Remember what God has done in the past to remember the things He is going to do in the future.  vs. 52 for they had not understood about the loaves.  The disciples, who saw His miracles numerous times had forgotten and needed to be reminded.  Sometimes we just need that reminder of something God brought us through to know that He will never leave us and in the end WE WIN!

The wind that is against us is not as big as the GOD who is for us.  If God is for us, who can be against us!