Tuesday is the last day to email me your results from your spiritual gifts tests. God wants us to understand how we are made and gifted and to grow into our purposes. Understanding these gifts is critical to that growth promised in Christ. Here's the link: Spiritual Gifts | FREE Spiritual Gifts Survey | Assessment, Analysis, Test
Note: All Vision Team and new members are expected to complete these assessments by Tus and email the results to me. Any others are invited to do this as well. After I have these, we will determine several opportunities to study and understand and seek to grow in our giftedness. These are God's custom made gifts for us to grow in Christ and grow His Church.
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Good Morning Forgiven, Abiding in the Living Word, Protected, Joyful, Gifted, Mighty Warriors! Amen! May that come alive in and through us! Prepare your hearts to worship this morning. God does inhabit our praises! As we gather and worship He is there with us, speaking to us, informing us, and preparing us for His perfect plans. Thanks Lord! Come! We have so much to worship and be thankful for! We are students of the Word that abide in the Living Word, Jesus. He protects and leads us as we don His easy yoke and allow Him to use us as we are and grow us into His purposes. As we pray and wield that Sword of the Spirit (God's Word) against Satan, he flees! Amen! Today the kids will study about the Sword of the Spirit in Children's Church and we will be meditating on the early church in parts of Acts 9-11 as they follow God to some new things and wield that Sword too. God wants to use us to overcome the enemy, go make disciples and to grow into the people He made us to be as we grow His Church. And as we abide in Christ, we are molded and empowered to do these and many more things for God's glory. Often that comes alive as stretching of us and moving us out of our comfort zones. God is always at work. Sometimes as we are moving with God and closer to His plans, Satan loves to attack and derail us from His best and perfect plans. Pray on that armor. Stand firm in Christ. And wield that Sword and Satan will flee. PTL! And we need each other too. We need to cover, help, and work together to move towards God's best and perfect plans. We need to be His mighty warriors and co-laborers with Jesus who is with us always. And we can choose joy always as we grow in trust and overcome together! May it be so Lord!
Today we will study how God stretched Peter and used him to go to this new thing He was doing as the persecution drove the followers of the Way, the new believers, out of Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. God is always up to something new as He uses His people to take that Great News, the Gospel, to the world and connect to them where they are. He's doing that with us as He grows our fellowship, leads us to new people, and is working to transform us more fully into His image and as His prepared and sent servants. And the enemy flak is being launched around us and at us. Stand firm and uphold each other! God does have great plans for us--His overcomers in Christ! Amen!
It was prophesied over us that we should change our name to Joy Church. Why? Because joy is what we exhibit and are known for as we love God and bless others and bring joy alive. And that is right where Satan is attacking--or joy. Stand firm and choose joy always is a command we need to keep working at. I have been experiencing severe attack on my joy and trust. I need you to cover me and uphold me before God. I need you to, like Aaron and Hur with Moses, hold my arms up as I pray for the victory to come. We/I need some mighty warriors by our/my side! We cannot back down or yield ground to the enemy! I am feeling your prayers and I have been able to pray on that armor and refocus on God instead of circumstances and the lies of the enemy. Please continue to pray, help, carry me and each other to the Lord in prayer and stand firm in Christ with that Sword of the Spirit at the ready! We are overcomers. We need each other! Satan has been defeated. Don't let Him defeat you or us or God's good plans! Let us commit to that and continue to seek, knock, put on that armor and follow well. Amen!
Check out the Upper Room and Our Daily Bread for today and the prayer starters from harvest prayer. Let us abide, seek, listen, pray and help each other to overcome! Let us follow Jesus and produce that promised good and lasting fruit as we do--together!. God does have great plans for me, you and us and they come alive as we focus on Jesus, step into our purposes and overcome together! Amen! Where's he leading you? How do you need some help to overcome or understand your purposes? Talk to Sarah or me and team up with some friends. Put on that armor and work at growing in your spiritual gifts which are custom made and given to you to become God's mighty warrior and good fruit producers. Amen! Worship and focus on these good things. Turn off the noise and wield that sword well. We are His Good News Delivery Co. sent to change the world and bring Christ and His ways alive! Let's choose surrender to God, joy and trust as we grow into that! And rejoice! His grace is sufficient for you and us! Rest in the Lord. Worship! And prepare! I'm praying for you!
UR: Embraced in God's Grace
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. - Deuteronomy 33:27 (NIV)
After many years as a stay-at-home mom, I was preparing for an interview. I was anxious, not feeling certain that the Lord wanted me to work outside the home. Just before I left for the interview, the mail arrived. There was an envelope postmarked from the United States. “Embraced by his grace” was written in the corner of the envelope. My heart jumped. It felt like the Lord was saying it directly to me: “You are embraced by my grace.”
I opened the envelope and inside were some stickers I had ordered a long time ago. The sender’s business card had 2 Corinthians 12:9, my baptism verse, printed on it: “My grace is sufficient for you.” Her tagline was “Grace: where our weakness meets God’s strength.” She had also included a free sticker that said, “Follow God’s heart.”
In these messages, I felt God whispering to me: “I embrace you. My grace is still enough for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Follow my heart.” I went to the interview knowing I walked with God, whatever the outcome. As today’s quoted scripture reminds us, “Underneath are the everlasting arms,” and they are arms of grace.
Today's Prayer
Loving God, may we always know that we are embraced by your grace. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
ODB:
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In 1943, a camp in rural Maryland called Shangri-La was purchased as a retreat for US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Rustic, quiet, and remote, it provided “an opportunity for solitude and tranquility,” according to the White House website, “as well as an ideal place to work and host foreign leaders.” When Dwight Eisenhower became president, he renamed this retreat Camp David in honor of his father and his grandson, and the name stuck. Aside from increased security measures, there has been very little modernizing of the camp. It remains the perfect place for US presidents and their families to escape and rest.
Believers in Jesus also have a retreat where we can find rest in the midst of our turbulent world. In Psalm 32:7, King David wrote, “You [God] are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” David recognized that God was his true place of safety.
Jesus welcomes us to find rest and restoration in Him. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).
He can be our place of rest any time, every time, and all the time.
By Bill Crowder
REFLECT & PRAY
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What robs you of peace and rest? How might you seek to find rest in Jesus?
Loving God, I’m tired. This world is tough, and sometimes I feel like the very life is drained from me. Please help me to be more intentional about coming to You and finding rest in Your gracious presence.
Discover how prayer can give you peace and rest.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Psalm 32 has traditionally been classified as one of seven penitential (repentant) psalms. Other psalms in this category are Psalms 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. In Psalm 32, the psalmist acknowledges the serious impact of unconfessed sin on the body: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. . . . My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer” (vv. 3-4). This emphasis on the impact of sin on our bodies can be found in other psalms of repentance. In Psalm 38, for example, we read, “Because of your wrath there is no health in my body” (v. 3). The focus in Psalm 32, however, is the joy and peace to be found for all who turn to God for forgiveness (vv. 1-2, 5).
Learn the true meaning of Biblical peace.
Monica La Rose |
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Prayer Starters:
- Glorify the Almighty God, who has the power to defeat your accuser and deceiver, Satan (Rev. 12:7-10).
- Thank God that his immeasurable power is at work within you (Eph. 3:20).
- Confess those times when you have tried to battle against Satan in your own strength.
- Commit yourself to living in God’s all-surpassing power (2 Cor. 4:7).
- Ask God to help you see how his power can be made perfect in your weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
- Pray for those countries that are clearly under Satan’s power, marked by cruelty, injustice, and horrible poverty. Ask God to bring his light into the darkness.
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| Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount. |
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Pastor Don
LISTEN ONLINE
