“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Israel’s journey of miles began with accepting the freedom God gave them and learning to trust and obey God in the wilderness. This past week at Radius we saw Israel finally step into their promised land.
Together as followers, we too stand at the precipice of many promises; promises of peace that passes understanding, unspeakable joy, and mountain-moving faith. Wherever we find ourselves in this journey, we all need to take more steps forward into these promises. As God’s own children, these promises are our inheritance.
And how do we claim that inheritance?
From last week’s study of the book of Joshua, we claim the inheritance through courage, faith and passion.
Courage to move toward a land of fortified cities and giants.
Faith to step a foot into the river though it still be raging.
Passion to declare as Caleb did, “Give me that mountain.”
Personally, there are places in our lives where we want to see the life given through His promises. It looks difficult, and we must be courageous. We move into the difficulty without fear because we know God is our refuge and He will fight for us. We step in faith where He calls us even though the circumstances threaten to sweep us away. Undeterred by the noise telling us we cannot and with vision for the future, we passionately claim the abundant life He died to give us.
And now as a church, we stand at a precipice. The promise that God gave us as we have moved out in ever widening circles to change our world and specifically our city is that as we love we introduce people to Jesus. This city is the mountain God has given us. Together, we passionately pray and declare, “Give us this mountain. Lord, give us more influence, wider circles and teach us to love as you love us; freely and extravagantly.”
We believe a permanent location will help us to do this better.
And so we introduce a building fund. Our need is to raise at least $50,000 by the end of 2017. We believe that we could even see it accomplished by our church birthday celebrated on September 17th.
Will you believe that with us?
We have been dreaming and we have been serving, but now it is time to move forward. It will take all of us being full of courage and faith, moving forward in passion, for us to take this step from portable to permanent.
Amanda and I look forward to seeing you step up in courage and move forward in this act of faith giving.
We are praying that God unleashes His passion for this city into all of our hearts as we passionately pursue Him and step into His promises. We cannot be content in Egypt or in wandering in the desert.
We must push. We must do hard things. We must believe God for more. We must believe and build on Jeremiah 29:11 that God indeed has plans for us to prosper as a place of Hope, and has plans for Radius’s future.
So we say, “Give us this mountain!”
Will you join us in this inheritance?
“You’re off to great places. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so…get on your way!”
-Suess
