we will collect for Everlasting Life Ministries, Study thankfulness flowing from Ezekiel 34 and share where we have seen God at work this week and celebrate. Where have you seen God at work? Write it down to share or prepare to share.
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Good Morning Unique Followers and Worshippers! Yes PTL we are all unique and custom made for custom purposes for such a time as this? How does that play out in and through you? Are you thankful and worshipful in response to being God's masterpiece, activated in Christ to do your unique purposes and those that you are created to play a part in with our Body and your team? Talk to God about these things and come with an open heart ready to follow . He has some awesome plans just for you and for us as His gathered and sent Body. Rejoice, seek and follow well! I'm praying for you! There is a flow with all of this through our devos. Check them out below. What's God saying to you? What will you do about that ? Who do you know that might be waiting an invite to come see and feel the love of God through you and us? You are uniquely made and gifted for such a time as this! Pretty cool, huh?
You know this time of year and especially during the month of Nov our focus is often on being thankful and sharing why and celebrating with family, friends and church family. From now until the end of the year our focus often shifts to giving, blessing and serving. It's also a time to focus on our budgeting for home and church. And it is a time to start seeking God for His vision and plans for next year and preparing to enter the New Year ready to roll with Him. Have you/are you experiencing any of these? Talk to God and some trusted friends about these and evaluate your fruit and God's plans and how to enter into them through the end of the year and into next. What vision has God given you? Who will you share an process that with? How can we help each other achieve fruit from the vision? What part(s) does He have for you--unique you? What parts does He have for you to team up and accomplish with others and even our Body? How does He want to you to pray, give, help? What do we need to celebrate from the year past? Who needs to hear this Good News? I always ask these questions and process with God and others, but especially as we enter the sprint to next year. Pray for us to seek and follow God well and to know how to produce the fruit He has for each of us and as His Body.
I can't wait to pray and process and plan together. I can't wait to work, serve and give together! I can't wait to celebrate and glorify God as He moves, answers our prayers and leads us to be His dynamic movement and Good News delivery Co. Amen! Prepare to lift many thanksgivings and celebrate who He is and all he is doing. He is producing great fruit in and through us! PTL! What can you share about your experience with that? Share and let us all celebrate! Amen! Be you and do what you are created to do and watch for and celebrate all the great fruit as we don Jesus' easy yoke and travel the rest of the year with Him and each other!!
UR: Confidently Me
We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)
For years, I lived in fear of what people would think of me if they really knew me. Everyone else seemed to know the Bible better, pray more, and know how to speak church language better than I could. I worried that I would lose the respect of my friends, especially my Christian friends. This lack of confidence transferred to my everyday life, and I was afraid to be myself.
I asked God to help me overcome this feeling of inadequacy. As I read the Bible, I came to realize that God loves me and forgives me. I truly began to believe that I was who God created me to be. I wasn’t ashamed anymore; I was the daughter of the King!
My new attitude helped me become confident in who I was, and I began to live in a more open and honest way. Living confidently as a Christian means reflecting Jesus and acknowledging you are a child of the living God. When we allow the love of Jesus to transform our self-image, God’s light can shine through us for others to see.
's Prayer
Creator God, thank you for loving, forgiving, and empowering us. Help us to live in a way that shows your love clearly to the world around us. Amen.
TWFYT
ODB
A Great Multitude
There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Revelation 7:9
In 2010, nearly four thousand believers in Jesus gathered in Cape Town, South Africa. Participants from 198 countries were represented at the conference—a gathering considered to be the most representative meeting of the Christian church in the two thousand years since Jesus walked the earth.
There will come a day when a gathering needn’t be “representative” because all believers will be together. John, in a vision from God, describes it this way: “I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb . . . and they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne’ ” (Revelation 7:9-10).
Our local churches may not always reflect the diversity that exists in God’s eternal kingdom. Sometimes that’s the result of factors outside our control—other times we may be drawn to worship with those we perceive to be similar to ourselves culturally, generationally, politically, and economically.
But we honor God when we embrace—and even seek out—the beautiful differences He has endowed to His children. They offer a foretaste of that diverse, heavenly gathering when all those who trust in Jesus’ sacrifice will worship Him together.
By Kirsten Holmberg
REFLECT & PRAY
How can you better embrace those who are different from you? How might those differences grow your understanding of God?
Thank You, God, for the opportunity to worship You with those who are different from me—both now and in eternity.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The Lamb, who is their shepherd (Revelation 7:17), is the theme of the words the diverse crowd is crying out (v. 10). This Shepherd/Lamb will be the center of the throne and will guide His flock to springs of living water. These words echo David’s “Shepherd Song” (Psalm 23) and Jesus’ teaching in John 10 that He’s “the good Shepherd” (vv. 11, 14). As we ponder the wonderful diversity of human beings in heaven, we’re also reminded that the focal point there will be the Lamb and God. The Lamb will guide us, and the Father will dry the very tears from our eyes (Revelation 7:17). The reality of the presence of the Lamb is the true key to what makes heaven so wonderful and what causes the crowd to worship. As we embrace the diversity of God’s children on earth, it’s a reminder that one day we’ll all worship the Lamb together in heaven.
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