My Journey into the Unknown, part 13

It appears that the Lord has His reasons for leading us to our new church. I still don’t know what all those may entail, but I’ve found one—and it is more than sufficient: the Lord is drawing me closer to Himself by placing me in surroundings that nourish and refresh my soul.

One example of this is the way members talk about their love of Jesus and are thankful for His grace. In relative terms, it’s as if I’ve been led through the wilderness and now am made to lie down in green pastures and led beside the still waters. I’m encouraged to wait on the Lord and let Him restore my soul.

It’s probably just a “coincidence”, but Sunday as we went to get a cup of coffee before our last new member’s class, I picked up a book on an end rack of the church’s library shelves that spoke directly to me. It is “The Prodigal God”, by Timothy Keller.

It’s a short (133 pages) treatise on what we generally call the parable of “the Prodigal Son” from Luke 15. In the chapter on “Redefining Lostness” the Lord spoke to me in Keller’s descriptions of the two brothers, showing me how I need to focus on the Father’s lavish and extravagant grace instead of myself. I may write more about that later.

In all, it is encouraging to hear men and women sharing their own stories of how Jesus has lavished His grace on them. And, as part of becoming a member, we each had to personally share our testimony of accepting Jesus as Savior in a one-on-one session with an Elder.  New members can come to CCPC from any denomination and with whatever past experience of baptism they have had, but they aren’t automatically members just by asking to be one. They must have made a personal commitment to Jesus as Savior and Lord, and share that story with someone in authority in the church. I like that.

We made the commitment to join Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church last Sunday; and this coming Sunday we will be presented to the church as new members. In order to join, we had to both share our testimony and answer five questions in the affirmative. More about this in the next post.