Living Abundantly
The 2024 theme for the Northwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church was Living Abundantly.
2024 Theme Narrative
We all have a story to share. That story has seasons of happiness and sadness, of love and fear. As United Methodists, we share a story based on Christ's sacrifice for us and his redeeming love. Through that love, we find grace, mercy, faith, and love more profound than we could ever imagine. A love for all, a place for all.
If we are living lives trapped in fear or anxiety, we tend to turn inward and scramble to collect all that we think is ours to protect what little we may have. We become shut down, turned off by others, and isolated in a scarcity mindset.
But God calls us to be so much more than that! When we surrender our fears, we can open our clenched hands and receive God's blessing. What's better than that? We also share those blessings with others and live the life God has called us to. A life of abundance!
2 Corinthians 9:8 says, "And God can bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." God's grace abounds to us, giving all sufficiency—not just barely enough, but super-abounding supply given to us to meet every personal need and overflowing in God's Kingdom work in the world. In all things, we realize God's power working in us to super-abound in every good work.
That is part of being made into a new creation. The molding and shaping can be challenging. Cracks can appear, but, in the end, what is made fresh is filled with abundance and cannot be forced to remain in the old.
Luke 5:36-38 says, "Then He spoke a parable to them: "No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise, the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved."
We become a new creation when we step into this new life with Jesus, a new life of abundance. The new wine can't go back in the old wineskins!! Let us enter this next season with open arms, ready to receive and live abundantly!
Use these lyrics from the song New Wine from Hillsong Worship as a prayer over this next season of stepping through the threshold from a season of scarcity into a life of abundance!
In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine.
In the soil, I now surrender. You are breaking new ground.
So, I yield to You into Your careful hand. When I trust You, I don't need to understand.
Make me Your vessel, make me an offering, make me whatever You want me to be.
I came here with nothing but all You have given me, Jesus; bring new wine out of me.
'Cause where there is new wine, there is new power, there is new freedom, and the Kingdom is here. I lay down my old flames to carry Your new fire today.
So, make me Your vessel, make me an offering, make me whatever You want me to be.
God, I came here with nothing but all You have given me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me.