Now is the time

(Google Images. Image description: A computer graphic of people in worship with their arms and hands raised. They are shown in silhouette. Hues of red, cream, amber, gold, ochre are the palette. Overhead a dove soars – The Holy Spirit.)

This is the time

To wake up and see

To sit up and hear

The voice of God calling us

To die to ourselves

Our prestige

Our own sense of power

Our sense of self-influence

Oue own sense of self-indulgence

Our own self-Importance

To wake up

And get out of bed

To shake off the slumber of our wilful ignorance

And prayerful knee

Bend

To the glory of Christ

Standing just there

To again recognise that

He alone is king and head of the church

This-apostles and disciples

Knew Before us

Saints and sinners-redeemed

To recognise

And know for ourselves

It Was not for their strategising

And scheming

Budgeting

Or negotiating

But by their lives fully given over to Christ

The power of Christ alive within them

That the world was transformed

The power of the cross to redeem

Both then and now, and the time to come

We – powerless to save ourselves

We – unable to save the world

Rather Christ transforming the world

Through us

Not by the power of our eloquence or by our cleverness

but through our obedience to Christ

Let us hear the call

To relinquish our power

And attempts at controlling our own lives

And our futures

And give these

(once and for all)

over

To God

May we now

boldly

repent of Eden’s sin within:

Of our distrust of God

And attempts to make ourselves equal to God

To confess now that we too often have thought

That we have known better than God what to do

We too long and too often have

considered our decisions as equal to

Divine leading

May we now

again

discover

The cross and the open tomb

And recover our wonder, dependency and awe of God

God’s glory

Now is the time

To let God show us what it means to be

A Christ-follower

On God’s own terms

To shrink not back from the call to Holy living

And holy loving

Now is the time

To discover again in our age

the power and presence of Holy Spirit

and tune our ears and lives to God’s voice

The book of Acts still being written

And to let God show us what it means to be His people

Reflecting His glory on earth

To become

A witnessing community

Marked with the power of God in our midst

To be more concerned with doing for the least as unto Christ

And concerned not at all for our reputation

To let God transform the nation through us

As we trust God fully

For it all

Now is the time

To seek the mission and vision of Christ

God’s kingdom plans and purposes

And let ourselves be transformed by Jesus

And to stop asking God to stamp his approval on our plans

Now is the time

To no longer strive to be a national church

But to be God’s church – for the nation