Good Morning Faithful Worshipers! Prepare your hearts to worship and enter His courts with and praise! Ask God to allow us to worship in Spirit and Truth and pray for Sarah as she brings the Word and Mike as he leads the kids. Pray for no hindrances for those God is drawing. Pray for our Acts 2:42 (They studied the Apostle's teaching, fellowshipped, ate together and prayed) church to come alive and for many to find His love and joy flowing from us. Pray for our leaders and for wisdom and courage to trust and follow God and His provision. Thank God for those provisions and blessings and ask that we would steward all well while trusting and following Him to the new things He has planned for us. Praise God for who He is and all He is doing and for revival and new life coming our way and to this nation. Ask God to position us to be hope and light to many being drawn to Him. PTL for all the answered prayers (even the no and not yet answers) Thank God He knows best. Thank God for gathering and gifting and sending us for such a time as this. Thank God we get to choose obedience and joy and for being born in this nation. Thank God for all our servants and the blessings our serving ministries are bringing. Pray for our brunch to connect to many seeking neighbors and for us to connect well to them. Pray for His kingdom to come and will to be done and for us to do our part in that. Amen!
Check out the flow through our devotionals for about wisdom, joy, hope and trust in the Lord. Pray for us to see and move with Him. Pay for courage and wisdom to do your part. We all have one! What's yours and who are your teammates? We are created, saved, gifted, molded, gathered and sent to make a difference for the Kingdom for such a time as this. God has given us all we need. PTL! May we choose to follow well and do all we can with what we've been given as His ambassadors, living and loving like Jesus, and all for His glory. Amen! And shalom shalom! See you in a few days, Lord willing. I'm praying for you and for our church to become a dynamic movement of God as He leads. What's your part and what partners do you need? Ask for wisdom and willing feet.
Upper Room: Hope from Cut Flowers
The Lord said, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” - Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)
Less than a year after retirement I was diagnosed with cancer. I was shocked to realize my life might be significantly shorter than I expected. I had always taken good care of my body. Additionally, no one in my family has ever had cancer, and my mother is alive and well and in her late eighties. I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. I’m a faithful Christian. I’ve been able to participate in more activities at church since I retired. Was God done with me?
One day during this time of questioning, I purchased some cut flowers. I put them in a clear vase on my dining table where I could enjoy them. I didn’t expect them to last long. Cut flowers may be attractive, but they usually die within a week. Imagine my surprise, however, when leafy buds began blooming on the flower stems even as the flowers on top began to die. As I drank my coffee one morning, it occurred to me that God was putting my mind at rest with the appearance of those leafy buds.
Like cut flowers, my lifespan may be shorter than I anticipated, but new growth can still happen while I’m dealing with cancer. Reconciled now to the situation I’m facing, I’m curious to see what God has planned for me.
's Prayer
Thank you, God, for reminding us that you bring new life to what may appear dead to us. Amen.
Our Daily Bread
The Work That Matters
[Mephibosheth] always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet. 2 Samuel 9:13
There’s a poignant scene near the end of Frederick Buechner’s historical novel Brendan. The character Gildas stands up to reveal one of his legs missing from the knee down. As he reaches for his walking stick, he loses his balance. Brendan leaps up and catches him.
“I’m as crippled as the dark world,” Gildas says. “If it comes to that, which one of us isn’t?” Brendan replies. “To lend each other a hand when we’re falling. Perhaps that’s the only work that matters in the end.”
In 2 Samuel 9, we find King David desiring to show kindness to anyone still living from the house of Saul (v. 1). There is one, Mephibosheth, “a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet” (v. 3). Mephibosheth is ushered into the king’s presence, where he hears these words: “I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table” (v. 7). And he always did.
Scripture is full of unforgettable stories of David and giants and armies and kings and kingdoms—the stuff of movies. But the Bible also remembers this poignant kindness shown toward a person in need—the story of someone lending a hand to another.
After all the big, flashy scenes fade, it’s possible that kindness such as David extended to Mephibosheth is the work that matters most in the end. Lending a hand is the kind of work you and I can be about each and every day.
By John Blase
REFLECT & PRAY
Who is a Mephibosheth in your life? How can you lend a hand to that person?
Compassionate God, please show me the one in my life that I can lend a hand to.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Mephibosheth was five years old when his grandfather Saul and father, Jonathan, perished at Mount Gilboa (2 Samuel 4:4; see 1:5-6). When his nurse heard the news, she “picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became disabled [lame in both feet]” (2 Samuel 4:4). He was the last surviving member of the house of Saul (9:3). Even though David had been Saul’s bitter enemy, David and Jonathan had loved each other like brothers and were “one in spirit” (1 Samuel 18:1). So, to honor his friend Jonathan, David showed great kindness to Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth. In response to the great kindness God has shown us (Titus 3:4-5), we, like David, in gratitude can show kindness to others.
Alyson Kieda
The Word for You
Sarah Young
Pastor Don
Rev. Don Kerns
72 Sunset Hill Rd
Boyertown, PA 19512
484-338-0009
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