The worship of God is a vital and integral part of the believers life. Our God is an awesome God. He deserves the very best of our sacrifices of praise, joy, confession and thanksgiving. Sometimes, however, God's people can become quite mechanical and routine in their worship of Him. Because of our human weaknesses we need aids to help us in our worship. And so we have beautiful stained glass in the church to reflect the light of God grace and truth; we have our huge rugged cross that hangs over the altar to call people to Calvary; and we have many other symbols in and around the sanctuary to edify the worshipers in the worship of our great God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Bible says, Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Just recently we have added another aid to our worship - a statue of the Risen Christ.
This statue is four and half feet tall and it is positioned over the main entrance to our church. As we enter God's House the eyes of God's people are raised to view Him who is called Emanuel.
Emanuel is a beautiful and meaningful name given to the Lord Jesus Christ in fulfillment to prophecies in the Old Testament. This One who came to deliver us from the bondage to Satan, death and hell is none other than God with us. He is true God who became true Man to be our Savior. We have dedicated our church to the glory of God and to the spread of His saving Gospel.
Worshipers, therefore, are reminded each time they come for worship that this is Emanuel's church, we are here to serve and obey Him in all we say and do. The statue reminds us with the nail scars in His hands and feet that this Jesus who died for our sins is alive and He ever lives to make intercession for us. He lives and because He lives we find our life, our hope, our strength, our pardon, our destiny in Him.
We pray our statue of the Risen Christ, with outstretched arms in blessings, will uplift and inspire all who come for worship. We want to keep our eyes, not on the world, but on Jesus who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated on the right hand of the majesty on high. God bless this new art work to further aid God's people to be all that we can be for Him!