Who's favor do we seek?

8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt

worldly powers come and go....but the kingdom of God (word of God) will remain forever. I am just reminded that we really need to be careful who we serve. We need to remain focussed on God. In churches...all over, people are followers of certain pastors. When i was a kid we left a church to follow a pastor locally.....but eventually that pastor left town....and we remained. If we found favor in that pastors eyes.....it was only temporal. Its hard not to love Brandon Hatmaker..... but we at ANC need to know....it's not Brandon's approval we should seek (well maybe I should cuz he is my boss) but the rest shouldnt.

Brandon and I spent the last couple of days with some about 75 local pastors and the experience was very humbling to hear the stories of men who follow God. I by far, was the least tenured guy there....tho there were many younger....I sensed a great commonality between brothers of different backgrounds...and I prayed with Assembly of God, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Anglican, and I'm sure some others.....but the things we had in common were Jesus, his Grace, the Word and serving God....and that was enough. There is a large movement in the city of Austin to unite and see to it that we do our part to equip Christ followers. Our experience with Austin New Church and its affiliation with not only the Free Methodist, but the Austin Baptist Assoc., and the Hill Country Bible Church is really just the beginning of a larger movement i think. I myself have support from many different people who have different faith backgrounds...and the one thing that we all agree on is Christ and the need to proclaim him to Austin and beyond.

Mark 14 is such a packed chapter. The one thing that jumped out at me this reading was the Lord Supper and it significance. Jesus is literally thinking about his flesh and his own blood that is about to be poured out....and broken as he passes it among the Disciples. Then they sung a hymn.... I was reminded of the sweetness of some of the hymns and the nostalgia that some of them give me these last couple of days...men were moved to tears as we sung hymns without accompaniment and some praise choruses. the Lord does inhabit the praises of his people....I think that it comforted Christ to sing that hymn before he went to the garden, and went to the cross.... so we need to minister to the heart of God more often with our 'joyful noises'