Refiner's Fire

Worship this morning:

Holy, Holy God Almighty
Lord, the Light of Your Love is Shining
How Deep the Father's Love for Us
Don't Let My Love Go Cold
Jesus, my Strength

Before we started, the pastor had three words given to him at around 6.00am this morning: Presence, Worship and Gold.

...I think God covered it with the worship.  :-)

In fact, refiner's fire was the theme this morning, and earlier in the week the Spirit led me to recognise within myself a bad emotion that I've had since I was kid.  I prayed on Friday night that Jesus would free me of it, as I did not want to feel it anymore.  I hadn't hurt anyone, physically or emotionally, but it was cutting me up inside.  Time will tell if I do feel it again, I believe if I do, it will be with less intensity, until one day, Hallelujah, I'll realise that it has gone, the repentance and cleansing work will be over.

I've picked the songs (or at least, God has) for next week, and I did it again - I mixed up two songs when giving them to the pianist.  (Circle on wall, write bang head here hard)  I have my concerns about one which may be too high, but to be safe I didn't say that one to him, in case I change it again.  The pivotal hymn I heard on my mp3 player, and I felt that "pang", love at first hearing, which I just know is the Spirit telling me that this is the Word that He wants me to convey.  Another newbie for the church (but is around 17 years old).

We all agreed how good worship was this morning.  Can I keep this up? I asked the pastor.  Pray for more he said.  What I have to bear in mind is that this isn't by my own efforts.  Yes, I did pretty well in my previous career, by my own efforts, and was slapped hard when I failed to achieve the expectations that were required of me, a level that had been set by previous performance.  This is no performance, this is duty.  In some ways it is easier that my Creator is in charge, but I'll feel worse failing Him than the church.  I was actually slightly nervous this morning, and you know...I think this is a good thing....