I went to a Christian music festival over the weekend in Newark, IL. The headline artist was Matthew West. A native of Illinois who now lives in Nashville. Anyway, the whole evening you could just feel the presence of God. Holy Spirit was very evident. From the time I put my Jeep in park, till the time I took it out of park and headed for home. Able to pray for people, testify to people, and just plain talk and listen to people. I was in my element.
While Matthew was performing I had a thought about a similar setting, during Jesus' time. Where this festival is held is at a church outside Newark that is surrounded by fields. Very large fields. I was watching him perform with the stage facing out from the end of the field towards the 6,000 plus people in attendance. Then the thought came to me. This reminds me of when Jesus feed the 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread.
Now, I'm not comparing Matthew West to Jesus, that would be crazy. But the concert itself reminded me of that miracle that Jesus performed. Instead of feeding the crowd physical food, Matthew was feeding us God's word with drums, guitars, bass and voice. Every word that was sung or note that was played pointed everyone towards Jesus!
Instead of having the crowd sit down in groups to receive the music, we all stood in unison as we worshipped our Lord and Savior! Arms stretched wide in surrender. Singing for all that we had to give! It was amazing to be a part of. Getting chills just writing about it.
Like I said you could feel God's presence the whole evening, even before a song was played by any of the artists.
It was hot, 101 heat index. The weather forecast was for possible severe storms that evening. While standing in line to get food, the sky to the west got very dark and angry looking. I'm like "here we go, it's coming." Then you could almost feel the breath of God blowing through the festival. With in a few minutes the storm clouds were gone and it actually cooled down. God had blown the storm out of the area to the North and left us with incredible weather to worship Him.
Then to show that He is God, He created one of the most awesome sunsets that I have ever seen. It was like He was telling us, "Don't worry about any storm." "Enjoy this beautiful sunset while worshipping me." The rest of the night was just amazing. Worshipping with 6,000 other Jesus freaks in a giant field, in the middle of nowhere! It just proves that you don't need to go to a church to meet Jesus. He'll meet you right there in the middle of a field.
Matthew 18:20 Amplified Bible
20 For where two or three are gathered in My name [meeting together as My followers], I am there among them.”
Well, there were more than two of us there and He was definitely with us. What an amazing God we worship. He is so worthy of all the praise and glory!
God Bless.
Rev. Kev.
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