“HOLY CONVOCATION”
Praise the Lord the annual season of holy convocation has arrived and the Apostolic and Pentecostal churches will be meeting up and down and across the length and breadth in the major cities and towns of the UK. This will also be replicated in the Caribbean, North America and Africa. We have fasted and prayed, made preparation and are ready to enter convocation with expectations that the God of the Bible will be present. This confidence is not based on our special time of prayer and fasting but in the word of God, in the God of the Bible who has told us that He will be with us. We pray and fast to sanctify ourselves so that our faith in God is not presumptuous.
A Convocation (Latin, ’calling together’, translating the Greek ecclesia) is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose.
Let us come boldly before Him for the place we are meeting is not Sinai where there was terror and dread but Zion. In Zion there is deliverance, safety and refuge. In Zion there is fellowship, where the word of God can be found, where the Spirit of the Living God abides. In Zion life is extended and fear is driven away.
Bring the sick, the lame the halt the blind; bring the lonely, the destitute the needy for in Zion all is ready, there is strength in togetherness. One can chase a thousand, two put ten thousands to flight, three a hundred thousand and four a million.
Preachers and teachers give the word: the understanding and revelation. Saints come and let us hear the word of the Lord: that we may grow thereby, that will equip us going forward, that we become doers of the word and not only hearers of the word. Let the singers sing unto the Lord, that the earth ring out for the Lord is King and greatly to be praised.
2012 is a year of many sporting events: European football championship, Test match cricket, Wimbledon tennis, the Open Golf and the greatest of all the London Olympics.
I call upon the churches to stand strong and do the work of the Lord in 2012, for bodily exercise profits little. The major sporting events will all have come to an end by the end of August but the work of the church goes on. Winners will have had their medals, cups and congratulations with their names written in the record books in perpetuity.
One thing the Olympic organisers and leaders have in common is legacy. “What am I leaving behind as evidence of success or lasting outcomes”? “What will historians say of me in the future”? In the case of the Olympics, it’s all about having to justify the considerable time and resources expended on games that will last less than three weeks. Greece is still paying the bills, with money they don’t have, for the Athens Olympics in 2004. In the case of leaders, it’s all pride, hubris. “I need to be remembered for something”, the argument goes.
The work of the church will not capture headlines or even appear in history books but there is another book which is being written not by journalists but by angels. Their record is accurate and the subjects of their writing may never know what they have written but in heaven all will be made clear for the books shall be opened and the Lord shall reward each person according to their works.
Have a wonderful convocation in the Lord’s presence. When your own church convocation is over visit and support others, for the Kingdom is the Lord’s.
God bless you, see you there.
If you or anyone you know is in need of help: prayer, someone to talk to or write to, then do get in touch by email, telephone or by ordinary letter. My email address at the church is: pastor@rrfluton.org.uk; or 90, Dunstable Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 1EH, UK; Tel: 01582 391503.
God save the UK. Our platform is the world and our congregation the people.
The Lord’s servant
Apostle Lloyd Denny