Rebuilding Hope
Remembering the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, Mark encourages us in the hope that we, as the Church, are made an empowered people by His presence. We are made a people who are shown and commissioned to be in relationship with others through Jesus.
When navigate the ladder between earth and heaven when we submit to having our identity reshaped by Jesus. This is an ongoing process that sees the false selves we have adopted renewed to express our true selves in Christ, bringing his Kingdom to those around us.
The risk for many of us in a grey zone is to create comfort zones as places we seek to control our environments – this inhibits our ability to grow in our faith. The invitation, however, is for us to enter greater dependence and hope in Christ and His leading through the chaotic spaces we find ourselves, both individually and as His Church.
This week we examine how our identity is shaped and the hope that comes when we fix our eyes on Jesus. He the one who has made a way for Heaven’s pattern to be renewed in us – reforming an identity shaped and marked by our Heaven and rather than the disorder of the world.
Mark, returning to Genesis 1, highlights that hope originates in heaven. We are shaped by the pattern of heaven through the work of the Spirit here on earth, as He brings form to the unformed chaos.
Mark invites us to consider the struggles in our faith as small crises through which Jesus leads us to walk in greater hope and deeper faith.
Mark begins a new series moving towards pentecost: Rebuilding Hope. Positing that we are in a space between decline and renewal, he unpacks what it could look like to prepare and cry out for renewal in this grey zone space.