A couple Sundays ago we brought in Joe Ewen to minister via Skype on the big screen. He gave us a word as a church for the year 2009.
It was taken from Psalms 65:9 You visit the earth and water it; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide their grain, for so You have prepared it. 10 You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. 11 You crown the year with Your bounty; Your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
Joe told us that this was for us this coming year. That the Lord was going to open up the heavens and pour out on us.
Now whenever we hear pour out on us we think of Holy Ghost moments where people are touched by the Spirit in powerful ways and everyone gets excited.
This could well happen, and we would welcome the Holy Spirit to do as He pleases, but I personally do not think that was the point of the word given.
I believe the point of the word had to do with the harvest. Even before the year ended we had the privilege of rejoicing over a soul entering into the Kingdom, a fortaste as it were of what is yet to come.
Many are unaware of how odd it has become for the church to witness salvation occurring in lives of lost people. It has been as though the ground of hearts has been very hard of late.
The point of watering the earth in the Psalm is for the purpose of softening the soil to help it to bring forth fruit.
People do not get saved on their own, it requires the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts for it to take place.
Backsliders do not just up and one day decide they will return to the Lord, they must be worked on in their hearts and drawn in by the Holy Spirit.
I want to break this word from the Psalms down for us as I believe it will produce faith to in us to reach out to others and share the gospel with them.
The gospel is still the power of God unto salvation. It is the means by which men and women are brought to faith in Christ. It is the seed we are to sow wherever we go and when that seed lands on good heart ground it produces.
About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
