Maybe I shouldn’t do this, but I will: I want to personally invite you to our Jubilee Great Thanksgiving Mediterranean Feast this coming Sunday after our 11 am service. At around 12:30pm, we will eat some of the BEST Mediterranean food around, catered by a highly reputable restaurant with years of awards as one of the top restaurants in Los Angeles. This will be our day to celebrate the family of God while we give exuberant thanks for His providence and care.
With all the events in this last week, it has become even more important that we glorify Jesus for Who He is and What He has done. This instantly shifts our attention from everything that would bring us down into despair, fear, or unbelief. And make it personal, because Jesus is so personal. Who is Jesus to you? Let favorite scriptures describe who Jesus is for you and to you. Praise Him out loud for who He is: Your Redeemer, Healer, Savior, Righteousness, Sanctification, Help in Time of Need, your Peace. Jesus is Wisdom from God, your Freedom, your Victory. You can go on an on until Jesus becomes to you “glorious” and your “all in all.”
Next, what has He done for you? He has conquered death, and destroyed him who had power over death, the devil. He has freed you from fear and bondage and saved you to the uttermost. He has risen from the dead and has the keys of hades and death. He has become sin so that sin is no more. He swallowed death, never to die again! Jesus has been healed forever so you can be healed today! He is saved in completeness so you can be saved in your brokenness in any and every way. As you acknowledge what He has done for you, can you feel new strength and hope rising up? That’s the shift!
Finally, what has He promised you? Again, this is personal. I encourage you to take the words you have heard from Him, because the words you have heard become your testimony, His revelation of Himself to you, within the promises He makes. Declare His promises made to you as TRUE. He is good and His mercy endures forever. He has made promises to you to make you a partaker of His Divine nature and escape the corruption that’s in this world through lust. He meets you as High Priest behind the veil inside the hope that His promises give to you; and your confession of hope is your maturity and fellowship with His faithfulness to you, through all testing circumstances in your life.
Who He is, what He has done, and the promises He has made make each of us more than conquerors, inseparable from His love! Jesus–in His more-than-enough ability, power, grace, provision, mercy and love–brings us into conformity into His glorious resurrection, where all things become new and we really can move forward from death to new life. May we each shift our attention to the One who is our all-in-all, then watch as everything else becomes small in the light of His glory and grace.