Towards 400 innit?

I came into membership at Reading Family Church this morning, as we move towards a membership of 400 in 2008. Now, it may seem weird to be joining a church in a town that i'm moving out of in four or five months, but Fam is where i want to be long term, and where i want to come back to when i've finished Relay. I want Fam to be my Antioch, to be the place i come back to, to be the place i get sent out from for whatever i do in the future, God willing. So its great to be a member of a church for the first time. Even though i was really late today, because my alarm didn't go off, and, you know when you wake up, and you know its late without really knowing how late!? Luckily it was only just after half ten so i managed to get there pretty much just as Sean was bringing people up the front to become members.

We've just started a five week series on the cross at church. This morning we were looking at propitiation. The gospel is Good News! God's wraths burns and fires against sin, it has to...He can't not be angry with us, God is so holy and so righteous, and we're so not, we can't offer Him anything. But He loves us, and takes the initiative to save us by sending Jesus to the cross. Thank God for that eh? Jesus dies on the cross, taking all our punishment, all the anger, wrath, and fury that we deserve...wave after wave, until Jesus cries 'it is finished' and it is. And we only need to believe. We only need to believe. Its good news. God is a God of perfect love, and of perfect holyness. And He has saved us.