Today the conference has ended. Whatever wisp of sadness I have it is over is washed away with the wave of hope and expectancy I have for the Tree of Life Family as we return. I know not only myself, but Amanda and Lydia, Richard amd Jacqui, and Lee and Jannet have been powerfully impacted too. We have had our faith challenged, our mindsets renewed, our fires relit – whatever phrase you could use, we have had it.
This has easily been the best pastors conference I have been to. It inspired me to be a better leader, God spoke to me several times very clearly, and the ministry was so specific and practical, as well as inspiring and edifying.
Today, the worship was so sweet, we paused on several songs about the name of Jesus and just praised Him over and over. Then Duane Sheriff gave a powerful word on coming to Jesus.
He told us that we need to keep coming to Jesus. Come to get saved, come to get filled with the Holy Ghost, come to get healed, come to get prosperous, come to get peace. Keep coming and keep getting! We have to not take offense but rather take His yoke and walk with Him!
Then Duane pointed out that Jesus said “learn of me” not “learn about me” and that we can know a lot about Jesus and not know Him. We need face to face time with Jesus, we need intimacy with Him. Duane then took us to 1 Peter 2, and showed us it all starts with coming to Jesus. That the person is more than the principles. The principles matter but the person of Jesus needs to be at the heart of our Christianity.
God is looking for churches He can live in, not just visit, and the way we get to that place is stop being covetousness and only desire the Word. Stop wanting what other people have and want the Word. But it’s not just enough to know the Word, we need to use the Word to know Jesus and build faith, hope and love in us.
We need grace and the throne of God is called to the throne of grace (Heb 4.16) so we need to come to the throne, every day. Duane echoedy sermon a couple of Sundays ago and told us we cannot hang onto manna as it goes rotten. We need new grace every day!
The final challenge from this message as Duane ran out of time was to be Mary not Martha, Martha was baking bread, but Mary was feeding on the bread of Life, and Jesus said that was the better thing.
Then Dave Hinton did his Amazing Grace melody, and then Andrew Wommack got up to close his own conference, speaking on the power of memory.
The Scripture tells us to forget not God’s benefits (Psalm 103.3) and to stir up out minds by remembering (2 Peter 3.1). We need to purify out minds by remembering what God has done.
There is a power to remembering. It stirs us up. In 1 Chr. 29.18, we are told that we prepare our hearts by remembering. In 2 Chr. 12.14 we are told Rehoboam fell and did evil because he did not prepare his heart. So, in other words, he did not remember the good things God had done for him. He failed to remember the words of the prophets. He failed to remember and did evil.
Andrew said that he felt that whenever a preacher or leader did evil, it came back to failing to remember all the times God had been good to them, so memory is very important to us, because it keeps us living right.
Andrew challenged us all not to be gooses, who apparently start each day brand new, and not to forget what has happened to us.
What a powerful challenge. I know I will not forget the healings I have seen, the miracles, the times God has come through with the money, the salvations, the changed lives, the times we thought a church would die amd it grew and thrived. I will not forget the words God has spoken to me about the UK, about Europe, about my family. Glory to God. What a conference.
A huge thank you for all the partners who have helped us be here, prayed for us and who valiantly have been serving the kingdom while we have been away. Thank you so much, only Heaven will reveal your full reward.
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