SummerFest – Photo Shots….

Harvest Time Worship Center, 63 Cliffwood Ave, Cliffwood, NJ 07721

This past week we had SummerFest I at the Church Facility. Lot’s of Godly fun, Food and Fellowship. It was a great time for the church family.

SummerFest – Photo Shots….

Wn with Urgency

Vision Series: WIN with Urgency

Key Text: Rev 22:20 “Yes, I am coming soon!”

Theme: Urgency is the key in delivering the gospel. Soul winning should be driven with urgency.

There are various things as a Christians we can feel or think of the Lord’s coming. What comes in your mind when you think of the Lord’s coming? Is it  joy, relief, fear, guilt - or as disciple of Christ thought “urgency”! The time is short!

2 Peter 3:8-12 Peter explains that Lord’s 1 day = 1000 years, and all you build will be burnt.

Often the word ‘fire’ is used to express the passion for Christ – but it can be totally misunderstood and lived, there is a general thought about this fire as jumping during worship (high energy worship pumping people to scream & leap) and shouting “amen” with in top of the voice during sermons. Being “fire” should not be just inside of a Church building or in midst of like believers only, agreed?

Paul writes in 1 Cor 4:20 “For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power”, meaning – a call to live an empowered life.

If you think about the nature of fire, it is usually quite but yet dominating; it consumes and leaves nothing undone, spreads rapidly in a split second the moment the wind blows and is not easily satisfied.

Same with a born again believers, moving in Holy Spirit with the same nature – calm, but yet in power; not burnt by the worldly things, but burning the worldly things; spreading the passion in their heart to others and could not be satisfied until they see them burning bright just like themselves!

Luke 12:49 “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning!” NLT

God given vision need to be handled with such a fire – let’s use the real word “urgency”. It should not be put in parking or even neutral gear, but should be always in drive forward. Vision’s very drive is winning souls. This is the most urgent part of everything we do in God’s vision. New souls coming into the Kingdom of God should be the real motivation, must be the fuel to continue the vision – not more money or new buildings. In other words, “there is joyonly in the harvest!”. No wonder why His word says there’s much joy in the heaven when souls are added to His Church.

Today I’m going to insist on 2 sharp bullets:

1. Reach souls with urgency, and
2. Preach the good news with urgency (insisting to make the decision now)

Urgency means ‘pressing importance which requiring a speedy action’ or ‘compelling an immediate action’.

What you do during a time of urgency? You won’t have a second thought, you just do it. You won’t wait or walk – you run, you put the pedal to the metal – it’s urgent, an emergency, you got to react now. This is the urge early Church had to reach souls. Reason was simple, Christ is coming soon and they got to reach souls ASAP, else they would perish eternally. Let me ask you what truth in this had changed now? Is it not more urgent now than in their days and more important than ever? Is it not Christ coming more sooner than then?

Early Church was reaching souls with such urgency Acts 8:26-30, Philip waiting in desert Gaza to win a soul. As soon as Holy Spirit said run to that chariot, he ran as fast as those horses and reached out with good news to the Ethiopian with urgency.

Our Master Jesus never allowed the thought of winning souls “after 4 months”; He corrected and insisted to the disciples that harvest is now.

John 4:35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, then comes the harvest’? Listen [to what] I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready for harvest.”

Ecclesiastes 11:4 “Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.”

The very first thing Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire and empowered the disciples to deliver an urgent message thru’ Peter and won souls in thousands. Soul winning is always a high priority, an urgent and most important assignment given to the Church. Jesus Christ commissioned the disciples the very same ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel’ and didn’t say “preach the gospel and wait for their opinion”, but “preach the gospel, baptize them” – He fully assumed that they would reach the souls with the urgent message the gospel and win the souls and baptize them.

Lord gave our Church (HTWC) a vision. Do you know how beautiful it is to have a vision!

Salvation is closer than we first believe. It directly means Lord’s coming is closer than when we first believed. We should be reaching souls with extreme urgency than the early Church. Look at things happening in our time, just this year – nation Haiti had a great devastation. Souls are perishing in hundreds of thousands everywhere before our very eyes. Anything can happen anywhere anytime. We much react now.

Think of Paul, when he was Saul he thought he would completely quench this Christian fire spreading and trained himself to reach the hottest coal and quenched it. There were several killed by Saul. Then one day he was reaching to quench the fire, he was caught in the fire – not just in a corner but in midst of the intense fire – and he started to burn like no one else – ever in history! And the Lord blown His Spirit like a tornado wind and took him all over the world and he spread the fire with same intensity! You touch his letters you will be lit that very moment!

In Matthew 24:6-8 Jesus said, “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these events are the beginning of birth pains.”

The reason He mentioned is not to see these are true and marvel, but know that His coming is near and we have less time and reaching soul is urgency task NOW!

Step #1: WIN. Win with urgency!

Next Step #2: CONNECT. Connect with clarity!