In Ezekiel 47, the prophet shares an amazing vision. God’s kingdom is an ever deepening river, pushing out further and further into the landscape. It’s not static but dynamic. It’s not restrained but expansive. It’s not protecting ground but advancing and taking new ground. Wherever the river flows it contacts dry and parched places. It brings new life, fruitfulness and hope.
This expression of God’s kingdom dominates the way we think about church, driving us to reimagine the ministry of the Church in light of the life and ministry way of Jesus vs. church traditions and trends.
“All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples…”
Matthew 28:18-19
Nothing will change the world more powerfully than the love of Christ shared with a world that so desperately needs it.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
Even a small light holds back darkness and a group of small lights can banish it completely.
Merely attending church doesn’t make you much of a church because sitting in a row, consuming church doesn’t make you very good at being the church.
If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit mercy, then it isn’t mercy.
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
You can’t build the future of the church on passionless, disengaged people. Nor can you build it on consumers.
The difference between humanity and all the rest of creation is that men and woman were made to relate directly with God.
Genuine spiritual knowledge lies in the union of the believer’s life with the truth of God.
To exist without the pursuit of God’s mission in the world is to exist as something other than the church.
“God was the first ever missionary when he went out in search of a man and a woman who had betrayed Him in order to bring them back into fellowship with Him.”
Eddy Ho