#pastorrobbenson

[pastorrobbenson]

Encounters with the only one that can and will deliver!

[pastorrobbenson]

Holy Week Experiences...

It was an incredible, in many ways inexplicable, Holy Week Experience.  We felt God was challenging us to move from a celebration that was primarily focused on a Easter Sunday Gathering experience to a week long, multifaceted experience.  It all started with an incredible Palm Sunday Gathering; the kids formed a gauntlet in the lobby waving palm branches, singing, “Hosanna in the Highest;” then Pastor George Schuerich drew everyone into Jesus’ encounter with the crowds that had gathered as He approached Jerusalem, “Say to the Daughter of Zion, see, your King comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” Zechariah 9:9.  With cloaks and freshly cut palm branches laid out on the road before Jesus the crowds shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest.”  So to, we invited Jesus into our Holy Week Experience, a journey that left us all changed, awed by a God that always shows up and never leaves folks the same.   “Good Friday,” another solemn encounter with Christ on the “Cross Walk.”  It started, as we gathered at the Connection Center, with our 10’ cross, willing bearers took their turn carrying this instrument of death, that always seems to expose the hearts of men toward God. Saturday night another “Cross Walk,” sacred…silent…prayer filled.  Then our time of healing prayer and worship extending an hour and a half over schedule.  A girl had over-dosed and nearly died Friday night, walked into the center in tears desperate for healing prayer for her heroine addiction and salvation.  That night she came to meet, in person, Jesus the Christ…her saving King and Deliverer!   As the night progressed we transitioned into a 12 hour time of Reflective - Reading of Scripture…out loud, in 15 minute intervals.  Thirty eight people rotated in, each reading their part, as we progressed through the Gospels and into Genesis from 8:00PM to 8:00AM.  A solemn and sacred experience with never less than 8 to 12 people gathered listening, reflecting, and reading God’s Word!   The Resurrection Sunday Gathering carried us right into the heart of God, with a line of 40 or more people making a plea or a declaration for or of Freedom!  Alcohol Free…Deliver me from anger & grudges…Free me to be able to help others…Free me from the bondage of myself…Free me from what’s keeping me from giving my all…all cries of the heart, God hears and God answers.  “Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where O death, is your victory?  Where O death, is your sting?”  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, put it down hard speaking on the power of death over those who are in Christ, death is powerless…Amen!

[pastorrobbenson]

Holy Ghost...

The Holy Ghost, isn't just an insignificant part of the Triune God Head!  He's the tangible guarantor that God is with us, He's the voice that speaks healing and life to our thirsty souls, He's the power that changes us, He's the promise that connects us to the hope that awaits, He's the comforter and the guider.  He is "I AM!"

The Holy Ghost, often even in Christian circles, is a part of the God Head we reference but avoid getting to know, because we Greek trained thinkers of the western world, are enraptured by the "Enlightenment."  Our way of thinking, our incredible "Reasoning" skills and mental prow-els often restricts us from subject matter that defy's our "Reasoning."  If we can't see it, if we can't touch it, if we can't smell it, if we can't somehow make something our "Bit#$" we ignore, we excuse, we minimize it into insignificance, thus the Holy Ghost remains unknown, and we remain ignorant of this powerful part of the Trinity who has so much to offer our empty souls; and who can and will enable us to live the abundant life Christ promised those who are adventurous enough to Follow Him.

Yes, I'm one who likes clean answers, that I can somehow master mentally.  It makes me believe the illusion, or should I say, delusion that somehow I'm in control, I'm safe, I'm secure, I've got the intellectual "where with al"l to KNOW it all, yes I AM Rob Benson.  But, really deep inside I know, just like everyone else that I don't know everything...so I'm left wanting to know...I'm limited.

How about you, do you find yourself coming up short of all the answers sometimes.  Do you find yourself without the necessary, reasonable explanation...

Well, God does have the answers, the question is will you admit you don't, and seek something beyond yourself, something bigger than you to gain insight you don't have, give you the comfort you need, the healing and understanding that man can't give, how about, POWER that is in-explicable in the natural and opens you up to the super-natural.

If that's the case, if you're willing to seek...then you WILL FIND!  Risk It!  What's there to lose...NOTHING, but there is MUCH to gain!