is Palm and Brunch. Bring a friend! Pray for Sarah and Mike as they lead worship and for the 2 Peas in A Pod lunch crew. Thanks! And please continue to pray for me as I minister to mom and Terry and we work on many things down here in Florida. Thanks! (I return very early morning. Pray for favor, good connections and safe travels)
Larry Paul News below
Good Morning Standing on the Word, Trusting and Choosing Joy, People of Peace! Amen! Are there any of these that describe you? Any you need to work on? What is God saying to you as you lift this salutation in praise? These all flow from our devotionals below and from who we really are in Christ. We can choose these and walk with joy and in peace as we trust, stand on His Word and promises, seek and follow--even through the hard times or when on the mountain tops too. Rejoice! Abide! Be still and know and go and thrive in Christ ! Amen!
Begin with the Connection blogs below. Do you know peace? Have you chosen it? You can! God wants you to know His perfect peace--a peace beyond understanding. His promise before He left was His gift of peace. Remind Him and receive it! Terry has been a great reminder of this to me this week. He has great peace and is standing in faith, believing in healing and accepting peace as he journeys through cancer. Mom is trying and we are praying into that. I have already seen God moving in her and am experiencing His shalom myself as we organize and prepare and even plan for a long future ahead. PTL! Keep AT IT Lord! BRING FAITH, HEALING AND PEACE ALIVE TO US ALL! Amen! Where is God showing you His peace? Share that story with someone who needs peace. Help redirect someone from anxiety to peace and help them to cast all their anxiety to God and to be open to receive His peace. Are you stressed about all the crap going on around you, in this nation and world? STOP! Breathe out the junk and give it to God and take a deep breath of His love and peace. He does know all and is with us always. PTL! He has a plan! PTL! he offers us peace and help! Receive it and allow Him to handle things according to His good plans. Amen!
Our devotionals below flow together with all this . Meditate and pray through them. read and meditate on the associated Scriptures and stand firm. You know to do that, you have to open your Bibles. Why not spend some time listening, praying, reminding God and choosing joy as you choose to believe and stand firm on His Word. And remember to memorize some to use against Satan and His ploys like Jesus did. There is power in His Word and he promises that when prayed and used in faith, His Word will be powerful and effective and will accomplish His purposes. Trust is the word from the Upper Room . Our Daily Bread reminds us how we can stand on and remind God of His promises that we know are always true. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of His promises and let go of our preconceived notions and wrong thinking to be able to stand firm and choose trust and joy. Try it! And don't forget the power in fasting! Try it! be still and know and allow God to deliver, heal, speak and direct as you fast and pray. Look at how The Word for You explains it. It is a solid teaching on fasting. Fasting is very effective too. Turn off the noise and be still and understand. God has a great plan for you to discover and one for our Body as well. Seek first the Kingdom and he will add all we need to accomplish His good plans and to do so with joy and peace. Amen! would be a good day to process some of this with your team and accountability partners. If you don't have any invite some to join you on the journey of growing faith, trusty, peace and joy! It works! It is God's plans for us. Talk to Him and some close others about that, process, maybe fast, and pray then go in faith to live and love a little more like Jesus! Amen and shalom shalom--perfect peace to you! I can't wait to hear your sytories of whaty God is doing in through and around you as you trust and obey and choose peace!
Connection blogs
- Things That Make for Peace
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:42)
It is so easy to miss out on peace. We get so caught up in circumstances and emotions that we forget to stay attached to Jesus and to enjoy the peace that comes from his presence. That, of course, happens to us as individuals all the time, I’m afraid. But it can also happen to a group of people or even a nation.
When Jesus came to Jerusalem during what we call his triumphal entry, he commented that peace was hidden from the city because they just didn’t understand who was coming into their midst, carrying peace with him.
That day long ago could have changed the history of the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem forever.
But they missed seeing peace that day. It was hidden from their eyes, according to Jesus. Instead of peace, within a generation Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people dispersed around the world.
Missing peace has grave consequences. It still does!
I’m convinced that when civil unrest breaks out in a nation, it is almost always a result of a failure to recognize the presence of Christ, who brings peace to the soul, and which then begins to filter into the culture. In the United States, as we have increasingly moved toward becoming a secular society, we can expect more and more unrest and violence, as the peace of Christ is held in less and less esteem and desire. As Jesus would say, “the things that make for peace are hidden from your eyes.”
You might feel powerless to stop such a powerful secular move in our society, but there’s one thing you and I can do. We can make sure peace is not hidden from us. We can and should embrace the peace that comes from the presence of Christ. Christ followers should be known as a people of peace, both within themselves and outwardly as we interact with those around us. When millions of Christians walk through life in the peace of Christ, a culture and society can be changed.
Prince of Peace, how I desire you in my life and in our nation. I recognize the desperate need for your peace, a peace that comes from my relationship with you. Pour that out upon all your people, please. Give us the boldness to speak and live peace wherever we might be. May your peace begin to bring transformation to our nation as you increasingly are recognized as Lord!
Express your praise to God as the compassionate Father (Ps. 103:13).
Thank him for desiring only good things for his children, including you (Lk. 11:11-13).
Confess those times when you have not wanted what God wanted for you or others.
Commit yourself to seeking first God’s desire—his kingdom and his righteousness (Mt. 6:33).
Ask God to “fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Col. 1:9).
Pray for Christians living in oppressive conditions, that God’s desire for spreading his Word may be so strong in their hearts that they speak the Word boldly, without fear.
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayerleader.com. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. - Luke 12:32 (NRSVUE)
In the weeks leading up to his tonsil surgery, our seven-year-old son was understandably anxious. He had never had surgery before and was afraid of the unknown. He asked about being put to sleep and how his throat would feel afterward. It’s scary to face the unknown and have no control over the outcome. He tried to alleviate his fears by gathering information.
As my husband and I navigated how much to tell him and when, God showed me how often I find myself in this same situation. Just as we told our son we would be by his side during every step of the process, God, our loving Parent, promises never to leave us. It is comforting for me to think about how God can always see the opportunities in our struggles. We sometimes have to pass through the overwhelming and the negative to reach new life on the other side.
Our son’s surgery was successful, and going through that situation strengthened his relationship with God. With God’s help, I will remember this and have faith the next time I face a tough road into the unknown.
's Prayer
Dear God, thank you for reminding us of your constant presence and plans for our lives. May we trust in you always. Amen.
ODB
Praying God’s Promises
Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. Psalm 119:49
“No, you can’t go to the lake,” I said to my daughter with my head tucked under the sink as I fixed a broken pipe. “Dad, you promised that after I had finished my chores, I could go,” she reminded me. I’d forgotten what I had said because I was preoccupied. My problem blinded me to my promise.
As my daughter did with me, the psalmist reminded God of His promises. “Remember your word to your servant,” he wrote, “for you have given me hope” (119:49). Thankfully we don’t have a heavenly Father who’s distracted and forgetful. We can come to Him not only with our hurts, problems, and disappointments but also in confidence knowing He’s a good Father: “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life” (v. 50).
God invites us to meditate on the Scriptures so we can remind Him of His promises—not because He forgets but because He desires that we know Him well. That’s why the psalmist says, “I remember, Lord, your ancient laws, and I find comfort in them. . . . Your decrees are the theme of my song” (vv. 52, 54).
Because of my distractions, my daughter needed to remind me of my promise. When she did, I gladly let her go to the lake. We can be thankful that our heavenly Father is never preoccupied or too busy. He loves to hear us pray His words back to Him.
By Matt Lucas
REFLECT & PRAY
What’s one of your favorite promises from God? How will you thank Him for faithfully keeping it?
Father in heaven, I easily get overwhelmed with the busyness of life. Please help me to remember Your promises to me.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Bible, is an acrostic poem structured alphabetically as a mnemonic device for aid in memorization. It contains twenty-two stanzas of eight verses each, which correspond to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. For example, verses 1-8 each begin with aleph, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet; verses 49-56 each begin with zayin , the seventh letter. The singular focus of all 176 verses is God and the Scriptures. The unnamed psalmist, ridiculed and persecuted for his faith in God, declares his determination to obey and make God’s word his delight and wholehearted devotion. The psalmist asks God to “remember [His] word” to him (v. 49), for it sustains and preserves life (vv. 49-52). God is omniscient; He can’t forget anything. The psalmist is imploring Him to remember His promises to him. God is faithful and is never too busy for us. Praying God’s promises found in Scripture can bring us hope and comfort.
K.T. Sim
TWFYT
Larry Paul News
Hello to all of our family, friends, and partners,
We are living in challenging times right now; the ongoing war in Iran is causing higher fuel prices (In the Philippines the price of diesel more than doubled over the last few weeks to almost $8/gallon) and making it difficult to fly through the Middle East. We are so thankful to know God is in control and everything that is happening is part of His master plan. We'll be travelling to the USA this summer to visit our friends, supporters, and churches as well as visiting colleges with Brayden. We're still working out our schedule, but we hope to see many of you while we're in the USA.
We had a wonderful opportunity to visit two schools managed by Dan and Tori Beaver, former Faith Academy staff members These schools serve disadvantaged students on the island of Boracay, rated as one of the world's best beaches by numerous travel sites. The island has a lot of development to attract foreign tourists but, unfortunately, the local residents, especially the poor, are taken advantage of and marginalized. The Beavers started these schools to give the disadvantaged children a quality Christian education. They just finished a construction project at one school and are planning a construction project at the other school. Larry was able to meet with their engineer to discuss the projects and future plans of the schools. And, since we were in such a beautiful place, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary (a few months late) while we were there.
Larry and his team are finishing up the two major campus projects that started in January; adding a 350kw solar panel system and replacing half of the High School building's roof (the other half of the roof was replaced last year). They are now preparing estimates for campus improvement requests that are to be done during Faith Academy's summer break; once we have the estimates we can determine what work can be done with our limited funds. This is in addition to his "normal" tasks of running the maintenance, grounds, transportation, custodian, and security departments.
Richard is enjoying college life at Lehigh University. He's doing well with his classes as he finishes up his freshman year. He plans to return to the Philippines during his summer break and catch up with his friends from high school.
Brayden is doing well at Faith Academy. He was on the varsity basketball team that finished its season by playing in the Asian Christian Schools Conference (ACSC) tournament at Morrison Academy in Taiwan. Larry and Enol were asked to be chaperones and help the coach manage the players. Faith Academy played hard and ended up in 6th place out of eight teams. He's doing OK in school, he's still working hard on his Pre-Calculus and Statistics classes to understand the material. He recently took the exam and is starting to think about where he'd like to go for college.
Praises
Larry's ongoing recovery
Richard making friends and doing well at Lehigh University
Brayden doing well at Faith Academy.
Enol volunteering at Faith Academy
God's continued provision for our needs
Prayer Requests
Larry's complete recovery from his heart condition
Finances for Richard to continue to attend Lehigh University
Enol's sister Zeny, complete recovery from stroke, and her financial needs
Thank you again for your continued prayers and support of our ministry at Faith Academy in the Philippines.
Larry, Enol, Richard, and Brayden
Some of the 500 solar panels we installed at Faith Academy!
Faith Academy Boys basketball team finished second in the Hardeman tournament held on campus.
Brayden with the Faith Academy basketball team at the ASCS tournament.
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