Opening Night
Tonight was opening night for the influencers conference and, after months and months of preparation, the conference is finally underway. From every vantage point the auditorium was packed all the way to the back of the balcony and the expectations that have built up over the weeks and months leading up to this conference have finally become to come to fruition, God’s plans for the week ar underway.
Tonight it was all about sacrifice. Pastor Ashley spoke on what was an interesting topic for the first night of a major conference. People who I talked to about it remarked that the first night of a conference is usually marked by the sort of message that revs people up and gets them excited but that this message was unusual and that God wanted to do something different.
Pastor Ashley started by talking about how that after God had called Moses to take the next step and take the nation of Israel to the promised land that God proceeded to give the Israelites a precise and exacting series of regulations to govern daily life. He pinpointed two things that they were called to do: bring sacrifices and burn incense. He made the comment that God was trying to build into the daily life of Israel the things that they needed to continue the blessing that He wanted to pour out and that we needed to build a place in our lives for God to dwell to get us to the place we needed to go.
Pastor Ashley talked about how sacrifice is a part of the deal if we want the presence of God and that it is something we are called to do daily as the Israelites were. He then talked about how the smell of the burnt offerings would have lingered and permeated everything nearby just as cigarette smoke does today and then made the point that so many of us have had the smell of the sacrifices we have made come and stain our lives to the point where there is a stink.
Incense was also commanded of the Israelites daily at the same time that the sacrifices were made which had the effect of removing and deoderising the smell of the burnt offerings. Incense is an analogy for the worship and prayers of God’s people.
The crux of the matter is that both sacrifice and worship are necessary to maintain spiritual health, both are commanded of believers and that worship is necessary for the sacrifices that we need to make not to smell bitter in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
We finished with a great time of ministry and an altar call for prayer for those who needed to bring the incense of worship into their lives.
