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Friday, June 28 2024
Good Morning Worshipers! Prepare your hearts o worship and enter His gates with thanksgiving! Pray that we would worship in Spirit and Truth today--always! Amen!
I'm still working on today's message. See what God is saying when we gather at 10. In the meantime...prepare your hearts with some quiet time with God and our devos for today. The Upper Room reminds us to guard our hearts. Are you guarding your heart and surrendering it to God? Our Daily Bread reminds us to be rich in good deeds and store up treasure in heaven. This life is preparation for the next. Are you ready for heaven? Are you storing treasure? Are you the best steward you can be with all God has blessed you with? Are you content? And The Word for You Today has me asking myself, "is there something God would ask of me and I'd say no?" Do you ever say no to God? I have but try not to. I am a work in process and progress and that's how God made us. We are to keep working on growing more like Him and towards our fullest potential until we are called to heaven. How can we help each other with that? What might we need to let go of or hold looser? God has great plans for you. Rejoice! Deny self, take up cross daily and follow Jesus! Amen! See you soon! (Maybe He just wrote our message for today?)
UR: Blocked
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. - Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
The surgeon delivered bad news about my husband’s health: “Two coronary arteries are 80 percent blocked and lined with large deposits of plaque. Triple bypass surgery and a valve replacement are necessary.” I felt my heart sink. Narrowed heart vessels are often called “the silent killer” because many people have no symptoms until a heart attack takes their lives.
We can experience blockages in our spiritual lives too. Scripture says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Our physical heart is the source of our life. And scripture tells us that Jesus lives within our hearts (see Eph. 3:17). We are to guard this part of ourselves carefully, paying close attention to our conscience, attitude, choices, and thoughts because we can also experience obstructions in our spiritual life. When we cooperate with God’s guidance in removing those blockages, we find healing.
TODAY'S PRAYER
Lord Jesus, shine your light into our hearts. Guide us to obey you so that your healing love may flow in us. Amen.
ODB:
After seven decades of hard work as a washerwoman—scrubbing, drying, and pressing clothes by hand—Oseola McCarty was finally ready to retire at the age of eighty-six. She had scrupulously saved her meager earnings all those years, and to the amazement of her community, Oseola donated $150,000 to the nearby university to create a scholarship fund for needy students. Inspired by her selfless gift, hundreds of people donated enough to triple her endowment.
Oseola understood the true value of her wealth was not in using it for her own gain, but to bless others. The apostle Paul exhorted Timothy to command those who are rich in this present world “to be rich in good deeds” (1 Timothy 6:18). Each of us has been given wealth to steward, whether it’s in the form of financial means or other resources. Instead of trusting in our resources, Paul cautions us to put our hope only in God (v. 17) and to lay up treasure in heaven by being “generous and willing to share” (v. 18).
In God’s economy, withholding and not being generous only leads to emptiness. Giving to others out of love is the way to fulfillment. To have both godliness and contentment with what we have, instead of striving for more, is great gain (v. 6). What would it look like for us to be generous with our resources, as Oseola was? Let us strive to be rich in good deeds today as God leads us.
By Karen Pimpo
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What opportunity do you have to be generous today? How can sharing what you have lead to greater contentment?
Thank You for the resources I have, God. I surrender them to You today.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 6:6-19 calls to mind the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The concept of “laying up treasures” is common to both passages. Treasures on earth speak of investments of things that only have earthly value and usefulness, such as gifts or money. Treasures in heaven refer to earthly investments that have eternal value. Generous giving on earth stores up treasure in heaven. Thus, the need for cultivating contentment. Doing so makes us less susceptible to greed and better positioned for doing good deeds and thereby truly enriching ourselves in the process.
Arthur Jackson |
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TWFYT
Don 
Rev. Don Kerns
72 Sunset Hill Rd
Boyertown, PA 19512
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