Ordination!!!

So last night was the ordination of 4 people, all four of them had some type of influence on my life. The four ordained were my mom Deaconess George as Evangelist George, My youth minister Min. Brown as Rev. Brown, My praise dance team leader Sis. Ford as Evangelist Ford, and her husband another youth leader Trustee Ford as Min. Ford (new youth minister).

Now the service was good but the main focus of this blog is the actual sermon for the night and it really got me thinking more about evangelism. Rev. Rakeem Thomas delivered the sermon. I always like the way he speaks because he doesn't try to make himself look good by using big words and being conservative. He wants God to look good and get all of the praise. He sugar coats NOTHING and makes sure we understand what the message is through his illustrations. The title of the sermon was "Two Sticks". It came from 1 Corinthians 1:18 which reads:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Now he was talking about the cross and what it meant to some people. The he brought out 2 sticks. Throughout his sermon, he formed the 2 sticks into 5 different things. First he formed them into a cross to represent the cross Christ died upon. Then he began to talk about math and how it applied to the church. He formed the sticks to form an addition sign (+), this represented the addition of Jesus to your life as a result of Him dying on the cross. He the took one stick away and held the other horizontally to form a subtraction sign (-). That is to represent the removal of things/people from your life. There is no subtraction until there is addition. Many people think they can just start taking things away and removing people from their lives that they THINK aren't supposed to be there. But if you just add Jesus...He will do the subtracting for you. After you add Christ and he subtracts people and things from your life, you will begin to multiply (x). God will begin to open doors for you to tell someone else about him so they can add Him, he can subtract people and things from their lives, and they can multiply.

Now imagine this; you have 20 people in the church. Everyone adds Christ, allows Him to subtract from their lives, and take the opportunity to minister to just one person. They add Christ and allow Him to subtract. You now have 40 people, they speak to one person and the cycle continues. Imagine just how many people we will reach if every church would add Christ, allow Him to subtract, and use the given opportunity to minister to someone else. Just imagine that.

Now if your church is not growing, DON'T LOOK AT YOUR LEADERS!!! Look at yourself and see what's wrong with YOU FIRST!!! YOU have to tell somebody. The leaders can't do it alone, they are being used to teach YOU so that YOU can assist them in bringing others to the church so they can minister to them and teach them.

With all of that said, let's move onto the next operation. Rev. Thomas stood there and struggled to make a division sign. It couldn't be done. That was for a reason. There should be no division in the church. Satan tries and sadly sometimes succeeds at dividing churches. God can't properly use a church if it's divided so we must stay in God and be deeply rooted in Him and His word.

There is something you can make with the 2 sticks, and that a (V). If you do all of the operations that can be formed you will obtain Victory in Jesus Christ. There is one last thing you can make with 2 sticks. He really had us puzzled when he said that because we couldn't think of anything else. I sat there thinking of a bunch of math symbols trying to figure out what else you could make with 2 sticks but I was lost. He then said, the last thing you can do is start a fire within the soul. HA!!!! Who would have thought he would have said that. I know I had a burning fire when I went in there but when I left, that fire had some extra fuel and I was ready to tell someone about God.

I love sermons like that, ones that make me think, ones that can refuel this burning fire I have inside of me. I'm not sure it will touch someone else like it touched me but I just HAD to share it with somebody.

Until next time...GOD BLESS!!!