God's Amazing Plan

I have been reading the amazing story of Joseph and his amazing journey of faith. He was cruelly sold into slavery by his own family, he was accused of attempted rape by his boss's wife and imprisoned and he was forgotten by the cupbearer in prison for two years. And yet he carried with him the promises of God throughout his tough life. At the age of thirty he walks into the public eye and is instrumental in saving mankind from starvation. In Genesis 45 he finally 'fesses up to his brothers that he is Joseph and weeps uncontrollably. The verse that really struck me was verse 5:

"But don't be upset, and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me into this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives."

Joseph has not removed their responsibility in them selling him into slavery, but he is saying that God planned it to lead them to their own future salvation. Now that is awesome. God took an extremely evil act of a bunch of jealous brothers and said, "I will use this evil act to ultimately save their lives!"

What is the relevance to us? Well, there was a man who was sold for a bag of coins to be put on trial and unfairly executed. Then when put on trial, a whole city shouted for his immediate death with no evidence of wrong-doing. The man was taken by some ruthless soldiers and whipped to within an inch of his life. He was then made to carry the method of his execution on his bleeding and torn back. Then, there on a hill, he was lifted high on a cross to die an agonising death. He then cries the words that we will never have to cry out if we are found in him:

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

This man, Jesus, is cut off from his Father in heaven because of my sin and your sin. My evil actions and yours, led the King of Glory to death and separation from his amazing Dad in Glory. And yet on the cross he forgave those who killed him and even led a criminal into glory! And what he says to us now is similar to what Joesph to his brothers:

It was God who sent me here to preserve your lives!

To His disciples, Jesus' death was the end of an adventure. To Jesus, it was just the beginning. As the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, so the shroud of sin was torn from top to bottom by the mighty hands of a loving Father. The Holy Spirit became freely available to all who would believe and the glorious church of Jesus exploded onto the pages of history. And that my brothers and sisters is what we are part of today.

What grace and mercy there is in Christ our King. Who would want to be anywhere else but in the presence of our amazing Jesus and our incredible Dad. I could keep writing but I need to stop. God is taking us on an incredible adventure and I am totally clueless to what will happen next...which is probably a good thing!

God bless you all as you read this. Stay in His presence and keep the fire burning.

Neil

A new era!

Hi Everyone

This is my first official blog on my brand new blogsite. It is all very exciting and one hardly knows where to begin. Firstly I want to say a huge thank you to Dan Dexter and Hayley Geurts for updating the Bethany website. It looks awesome! Please make full use of this site for information, preaches you may have missed, Cutting Edge news, Refresh dates etc.

We are living in amazing days and there is the smell of Spring in the air. We all know what Spring brings; sunshine (hopefully), longer days and more importantly new life. This is a new season for Bethany Community Church. God is changing the atmosphere amongst us. We are seeing more healings, the church is gathering more people and we are starting to see new life in the form of baby Christians. I have not known a time like this and yet it feels like we are just in the starting blocks. It says this in Isaiah 43:

18 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
20 The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
21 the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.

There are new streams flowing and the thirsty are being satisifed. However the key verse is 21: That they may proclaim my praise. In all that is happening at the moment we honour and praise our Dad in heaven. It is all for His glory and not ours. It is His presence we seek and not His benefits. As we seek His presence first everything else follows. Continue with me in our pursuit of God's face and then stand back and see what greater things He will do amongst us here at Bethany and in our community.

For His glory!

Neil

Lots of website changes

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that there have recently been some amazing changes to the Bethany CCH website. Go have a look - Bethany Community Church website

God is so amazing!

 Hope you are still praising God for the amazing weekend that we have just had. I have to say that I was blown away by the amazing work of the Holy Spirit. I know many lives were impacted. One lady walked into the chapel with a walking stick due to a fifteen year back injury and was able to go Treasure Hunting without the stick as God had healed her spontaneously in the morning! Two people were healed on the street and a young girl expressed a desire to know God personally! Then on the Sunday morning many of us were mightily blessed through Wendy Mann and her team. We saw more healing and freedom for many.

Church, we are in historic times. I have never experienced a time of God's favour like now. It is an utter privilege to be alive at this time and a real honour to serve you all. To finish off this encouragement, many of you won't know but we had a young man make a decision to follow Jesus at Sunday evenings youth event. There is a wild party happening in Heaven right now!!! Hope you are looking forward to a wild party this Sunday morning! We have SO much to celebrate at this time.