Our vision at Christian Life Camps Bay is to be a church of healing, inclusion and growth, summed up as ‘Be Changed, Be Nice, Be Used’.
Here are some of the main areas of healing, inclusion and growth that we believe God has called us into as a local church.
Firstly, there's our Vision of Healing (summed up as 'Be Changed')
We are thinking primarily, about how our orientation gets changed and healed-up so that we become people who live to glorify and enjoy Christ forever.
The greatest and most magnificent change of all is to be transformed from living a self-centred to a Christ centred life. This is a healed-up life made whole in Christ. This is a life lived to glorify and enjoy Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour forever.
In Philippians 1:20-23, the Apostle Paul, in prison, wrote about how he lived this way, saying; ‘It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.’ (ESV)
In verse 20 the word 'honoured' translates the Greek word, 'μεγαλύνω (megalynō), which means to make, or declare great, or to magnify. This life that is orientated around honouring Christ is like being a magnifying glass, and no matter what happens to us, people looking at us will see big and magnificent Jesus is!
On another occasion, during a terrible, life-threatening storm on a ship in the Mediterranean, Paul spoke about ‘the God to whom I belong and whom I worship’ (Acts 27:23). That is how we want to live, as those who belong to, and worship, God.
That's what is means to 'be changed'.
In the next blog, I will share how this life orientation happens through experiencing salvation
No comments:
Post a Comment