In his message to the GMS family on Christmas day, Pastor Thamo commenced by reflecting on 2020 as a year that we have seen the judgment of God in the form of the present pandemic. Whilst the pandemic is destructive in nature and has caused much human suffering, we must know that the judgments of God are firstly meant to be corrective and not punitive.
The past year has been a year of preparation, of sharpening, of recalibration, and a year of catharsis in many ways. 2020 has brought us back to the original intent of God for families and for how the Church of Christ out to be constituted. We have learnt that it is not where we meet, but how we meet.
Faith is something that we must all learn to build in the new year. If you are not firm in your faith, you will not be firm at all. The development of our faith will be of paramount importance in the new year. Not only will faith strengthen us, but it will make us influential and successful in the challenging times that we are still to face.
The message today was focussed largely on Luke chapter 1. The focus was not just on the historical context of the Luke 1 narrative which records in detail the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, but the focus was on building our faith around the seed of a woman, that will bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). It is the full revelation and understanding of these scriptures that will help us to build strong faith, and to fully understand our salvation and mandate upon the earth.