And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32
The theme of our Christmas this year is “The Journey.” This talks about our spiritual journey with the Lord daily. Since this past August, the Lord’s message for IBC family is to become true disciples of Christ. It is the Lord’s will that we begin our spiritual journey by being His disciples and walking with Him daily.
As the verse above mentioned, when the disciples walked with Jesus from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they experienced a change in their hearts. Their heart burned within them and their excitement rose again. When they began their journey to Emmaus, their heart was weary due to the death of Jesus that had just happened. They were not aware that Jesus had been resurrected.
Likewise, our journey as disciples of Christ is extremely important because it will change our lives forever. In this Christmas celebration, we are reminded about our spiritual journey as His disciples, starting from when we were born-again and received Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. From that point on, we began to walk in our spiritual journey with the Lord.
The Holy Spirit will fill us and we will learn to live for Christ, to put Him first above our needs, including our jobs. Spiritual matters will become our priority – going to church, doing ministries, our personal fellowship with the Lord. We will start to learn how to seek the Kingdom matters first (Matthew 6:33) because that’s what brings us to eternity. Meanwhile, the earthly matters will stay on earth. We learn to make Jesus as the center of our lives, families, jobs, friendships, hobbies and etc.
Other than prioritizing God in our lives, we will also start to experience the process of discipleship. We will learn to know God more through our devotional time, worship and the local church. As time goes by in our spiritual journey as disciples of Christ, we will start to bear fruits. Our characters will transform to be like those of Christ. The fruits of the spirit will start to show in our lives. From here, we will start to be the salt and light of the world; we will be living testimonies for the nonbelievers. The Lord will use us as His tools to spread the gospel of salvation to the lost souls.
Our prayer as senior pastors: let us continue with our spiritual journey with the Lord so that we can be transformed, be blessed and win many souls for the Lord. For those who have not started the journey, receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior tonight, as this will mark the beginning of your spiritual journey.
Merry Christmas 2019 and Happy New Year 2020. God bless us all.
Pastor Raymond & Pastor Juliet Pranoto
Senior Pastor IBC Church Washington DC