Celebrate!

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad."

-- John 8:56

This Sunday marks Velocity Christian Church's 9th anniversary as a community focused on helping folks in the Richmond, Virginia, area accelerate their faith-journey toward God. But what is it that Velocity--and every other Bible-believing church in the world--will celebrate this Sunday...and every Sunday to come?

It's the radical notion that God loves His creation so much, He sent His only Son to pay the immense debt that we all owe for falling short of His perfect standards. With our individual accounts now cleared, every Believer, through faith in Jesus Christ, is reconciled to their Creator. Moreover, we're free to serve as His hands and feet throughout the community, the nation and even the world. 

 

How's the Church done with handling this Good News over the last 2,000 years? The familiar story goes that a missionary once asked Mahatma Gandhi--the pacifist Hindu leader called The Father of India--why he so often quoted Jesus but refused to become a Christian.

"Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ," replied Gandhi. "It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Yes, we Christ-followers are in a predicament. Relativism rules America these days, and what's obviously right and wrong is no longer considered so black and white. Popular culture brands those who believe in Jesus and His teachings as old-fashioned and intolerant. And those who dare to point out our nation's retreat from God are called bigots and hate merchants.

Meanwhile, if a Christ-follower--real or in name only--slips up and does something wrong, the word hypocrite soon follows them throughout the media. Rest assured, however, that our Creator isn't blind to what's happening in the world.

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil," says God, "who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

As we celebrate Velocity's 9th anniversary of being His hands and feet in the Richmond area, Jesus encourages us to be salt and light to a distorted world in need of guidance, truth and character. May it be that the people called Velocity celebrate their Good News through changed lives marked with love in action!