Sometimes a re-run is a good thing. Last year I started off the year with a few others by acting on our faith and if we didn’t feel our faith was strong enough – we acted in order to have stronger faith. It worked.
So this year we are starting 2014 in a similar fashion. We are starting a sermon series at Cornerstone UMC called “Revival Through the Means of Grace.” Each week we will be preaching on a different Means of Grace and giving some ways for each of us to experience these practices and find the grace of God within them.
Discipleship is about loving God….It is more than an acknowledgement of God’s existence or a statement of belief regarding God. It is total devotion, head-over-heals-in-love-with adoration. It is the deep desire to know God, to be one with God, and to worship God. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, called the practices that facilitate this the means of grace. They are means for developing our relationship with God and for experiencing God’s presence in our lives. These practices help us spend time with God, a significant factor in loving God. (paraphrased from umc.org)
Some of the means of grace are easy for Christians on their faith walk. Others take a bit more of a push.
The means of grace are:
- prayer (both public and private)
- fasting
- reading scripture
- healthy living
- communion
- baptism
- attending worship
- sharing faith
- Christian conferencing
- good works
- visiting the sick
- visiting those in prison
- feeding the hungry
- giving to the needy
- seek justice
- work to end oppression
- work to end discrimination