Last Saturday, returning back to the Cedar Room, Garden Hotel after 20 years to worship at the same place with some of the same people who worshipped there and with the same worship team 20 years ago was more than memorable. As I stood at the same spot I use to stand 20 years ago with my hands lifted up to the Lord, it brought back powerful memories of the past – of a church so small in a place so insignificant with a congregation without vision or direction but with a God who was in those small beginnings.
Twenty years ago God gave me a promise for the small little church that met at that basement room – Isaiah 43:18-19 :
"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
Ever since then, God had not stopped doing new things. In fact, one of the characteristics of the church is new things, again and again. It was there in the Cedar Room that the Lord began that little stream called Agape. And over the years, the stream had meandered through mountains and valleys, obstacles and valleys and today, it is gaining the strength of a river and it is on its way to becoming a mighty river!
The sense of destiny at the Cedar Room that evening was indescribable. It was truly something to get in touch with the promise in the place where it was given and to see how true God has been to what He had promised and then to charge the next generation to keep expecting God to do new things even after the founding generation has passed on.
Awesome!
