Wednesday, 22 May 2019

In the Cross of Messiah I Glory

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Our power and effectiveness is dependent on Yeshua's death and resurrection. In John 5, Yeshua explains that the Father is pleased that we honor the Son as we honor the Father. This is astonishing and so very important. Some streams of Christian piety have done a wonderful job of emphasizing this reality: The great liturgy of communion in the historic churches, the great hymnology of the Reformation, the Moravian movement's emphasis on the crucified Yeshua as the basis for our love and devotion, and lastly the hymnology of Charles Wesley. These all show a depth and understanding that is wonderful for our reflection. The effectiveness of these movements is in part to be attributed to this emphasis.

Yet, in many Messianic Jewish services (and might I add much contemporary Christian worship too) there is little of this depth. Our contemporary worship is largely made up of choruses that mention little of what Yeshua did. We may sing, "I love you Yeshua", but do not well tell the story of what He did and why we love Him. His suffering love is not the emphasis of much of today's contemporary worship in general. I do believe that without this emphasis in our preaching and worship, we will see less transformation in our people, less devotion, and less of the presence and power of the Spirit. In addition, our outreach to our people will suffer. The power of God's anointing is more important than not giving offense to our people. We make room for God’s anointing (individually and corporately) when we give top priority to Yeshua’s death and resurrection (Philippians 3:10).

We cannot be an authentic New Covenant movement unless our worship and teaching have this crucial note of focus on the crucified and risen Lord. I am sure that some of our readers in the larger Church world will also find that this truth has much relevance to them. May God so lead us to glory in the cross of the Messiah.

These excerpts were taken from my article.