Over a year ago I had the realization that many of my prayers for New City Church were rather small. I was challenged to pray bigger prayers. Too often I limit God by my own limited imagination. I shared this challenge with the Council of Elders and we came up with a list of several “big prayers” that we began to pray. We haven’t been praying for big things out of a sense that God is a genie in a bottle or that he somehow owes us big things. Instead, we began to pray big prayers out of a conviction that God wants to do great things in and through New City.
As we pray for our church, the elders pray for our faith to grow. We pray that each one of us and the church as a whole would grow in faith and in maturity. Even as we have prayed for a very specific request, we are shocked and humbled and amazed at the greatness of our God as he has answered one of our big prayers.
Last week we received word that a donor (who wishes to remain anonymous) was giving New City Church a gift of $225,000 to pay off our mortgage. We have received that gift and as of this morning, New City is debt-free! This enables us to be more generous as a church. God is good.
The truth is that as we become more like Jesus, we become more generous, for our God is the very meaning of generous. For some this means giving the widow’s mite. For others it means paying off a church’s mortgage. For most of us, it is something in between, but all our gifts are given as a response to the kindness of God in Christ through his Spirit.
Our God is present and active in our midst! This generous gift is but one of countless examples of God’s good work among us. We recently baptized three people. We continue to see lives changed and transformed by the amazing power of God. We see God’s hand at work in our lives in many ways. This generous gift enables us as a church to continue with God in his mission for this world.
Let’s praise our God today for who he is and for what he has done.