Congratulations to our Lay Delegate Kathy Canfield who was elected to also be the Lay Delegate for our Lehigh Valley EC district! Many blessings Kathy and congratulations! May God lead you and use you well! Amen!
Good Morning Trusting, Peace-filled, Caring, Servants of the Lord! AMEN! This salutation flows from our blogs and devotionals for . God took me to still waters and green pastures and deep places as I and worshiped, listened and heard during my quiet time. Have you had your time with God yet? If not, still yourself and allow Him to come fill you and lead you to the still waters and green pastures of His deep love for you. Think about the disciples and what they were experiencing and trying to comprehend this week in AD 33. But how could they fully understand? They didn't have the Holy Spirit yet to open God's Word to them or the experience of Good and Resurrection behind them. Confused? Crushed? Lost? Clueless? Hurt? Disappointed? Struggling? Trusting? Giving up? These and other things come to mind as I think about the push back and unexpected things they had been feeling, seeing and experiencing. And then they gathered in that Upper Room and their Rabi enters, puts on a towel and starts washing their feet. WHAT? No master! Then Jesus said that this was to be an example of how they were to treat others and lead--from humility as a servant and then leader. Huh? Then He started talking about His broken body and spilled blood as He instituted the remembrance of Him and His sacrifice that we call the Lord's Supper or communion. A broken body and spilled blood? Someone from among us will betray You? We will scatter and Peter will deny you 3 times? No way! Well, yes way. And on the night He was betrayed Jesus continued to pray for and pour into and tried to prepare His team. Many trials and struggles lie ahead the next few days. We can sympathize with them. We've often been lost, confused, doubting and felt left out of information needed. Most of us at one time or another have run from Jesus, truth, and trauma. Maybe even denied Jesus and our faith. Thank God Jesus carried through with His mission and we are and can always be forgiven, made new, grow in faith and experience His presence and help. Thank God we are forgiven and made new. Thank God we were one way and then another new way! Thank You Jesus for washing my feet, cleansing my soul and walking with me through everything. Thank You for saving a wretch like me and reviving my faith when needed. Thank You for being our Lord and Savior! Thank You also for Your promised peace that flows from our faith and trust in You and Your Good plans! Thank You Jesus! Amen
Still yourselves and work through the Connection Blog and our devotionals as you remember and worship and as you surrender and repent. God loves you and the cross and resurrection are an example of how far He's willing to go for you! We can know peace beyond understanding and we do have a future and hope because JESUS! Amen! PTL! Be still and know and run to His loving arms with everything. Invite the Holy Spirit to come teach and lead you. And thank the Father that we know that we know that we know that we are loved, saved, forgiven and made new in Christ! Amen! Then ask for help to go love and serve and even lead like Jesus. That's why God saved you and amde you new! Amen and shalom shalom!
Connection Blog
- Let Peace Rule
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
When speaking of peace in Colossians, Paul pulls out all the stops and hits us with the word “rule.” Peace is to rule in our hearts. This is a far cry from an emotion of peacefulness or an attitude we have somehow developed. Ruling is a powerful word that indicates the ability to transform and direct the activities of your life. The peace of Christ has that innate ability to rule.
It is interesting that Paul’s command is that we let peace do its ruling work in our hearts. The peace of Christ, let loose in your life, will rule and direct you in ways that line up with the purposes of Christ. Our job is to let that happen. In a sense, that means that we give permission to the peace of Christ to rule.
You get to choose who or what will rule in your heart. God’s Word tells us that the very best thing we can do is let peace take over.
Sometimes it seems that life throws everything at you, all at once. In the fall of 1998 that happened to Kim (my wife) and me. My father was in the last stages of his five-year battle with lymphoma. My mother, who was his primary caregiver, suffered a massive stroke that paralyzed her right side for the rest of her life. Dad was on one floor of the hospital and Mom on another. My mom’s brother was on yet another floor of the hospital, dying from cancer. In the midst of that, we got a call that Kim’s mom had a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack—a precursor to a stroke) giving us the fear of another stroke coming in the family.
We ran into the arms of Jesus. There was nowhere else to go. His peace enveloped us and though circumstances did not change, I can say with confidence that his peace began to rule in our hearts. The peace of Christ was in charge, not the circumstances of failing health and fear.
The key is our choice. Regardless of what is happening in or around us that is stealing our peace or creating anxiety, we can still choose to let peace rule in our hearts. This is where faith steps in and takes over. We go to God’s Word which tells us to simply let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and though that seems woefully inadequate in the face of our fears, we, by faith, say yes to the Word of God. We pray that truth into our lives and watch and see what God does with an obedient, faithful heart.
Memorize Colossians 3:15: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” Begin each day by affirming that the peace of Christ is ruling in your heart.
Lord, I choose to let Your peace rule in my heart. Regardless of what happens around me, it is Your peace that will rule within. Thank You that we have literally been called to this peace by You. I am grateful!
Jesus said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” - John 13:13-14 (NRSVUE)
When I declare Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I usually focus on the word savior because I feel grateful that Jesus has saved me. But I wonder, when I call him “Lord,” what am I really saying? I researched this, and discovered that the Greek word for lord is kyrios, which can be translated as a man with great power and authority.
In the military every person must answer to someone of higher rank and obey the orders of their commander. In ’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus gives his disciples a single command: “Love one another as I have loved you.” And he led by example, first serving the disciples by washing their feet and then demonstrating the greatest possible love — “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
So now when I encounter the word Lord in scripture or say it in prayer, I add Commander. This reminds me to obey my Lord’s command — to love others through service and self-sacrifice.
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's Prayer
Jesus, our Lord and Commander, help us to obey your instruction to love and serve one another as you love us. Amen.
Our Daily Bread
Caring and Communion
This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. 1 Corinthians 11:25
When I broke my upper arm, my friend Rex surprised me by shipping a care box of frozen soups with a beautiful, silver ladle. I was deeply touched and kept the ladle long after consuming the soup. My arm has healed and dear Rex has since passed away, but his gesture of love continues to express God’s love for me. Every time I lift the ladle, I thank God for His love to me through my friend.
Jesus gave us a tangible gift in the celebration of Communion to help us remember His incomparable love for us (Luke 22:19). The apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians how Jesus broke bread, saying, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). Then Christ “took the cup, saying, ‘The cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me’ ” (v. 25). God’s lavish love is remembered again and again as we take the bread and lift the cup as believers in Christ.
Rex showed his love through the tangible gift of a care box, leaving a ladle to remind me month after month. Jesus loved us in the life-altering gift of His body sacrificed on the cross for our sins. He left us the practice of Communion to remind us of His unchanging love.
By Elisa Morgan
REFLECT & PRAY
When do you celebrate Communion (the Lord’s Supper)? How might your celebration of it become more meaningful as you remember God’s love for you through this practice?
Dear God, thank You for loving me so sacrificially and for leaving the tangible practice of Communion to remind me again and again of Your love.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (1 Corinthians 1:1). As an apostle, he was an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus (see Acts 1:21-22). But for him, this happened on the road to Damascus (see 9:1-6). He wasn’t present at the Last Supper with the other disciples (see Matthew 26:20-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20), but Christ may have instructed Paul through the disciples who were present on that occasion. On that Passover night, Jesus “took bread” and said, “This is my body given for you.” Then He instructed them, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), thus instituting the first Lord’s Supper. Christ demonstrated His love by dying on a cross. Paul reminds us, “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread” (1 Corinthians 11:23). As we remember Christ’s supreme act of love by partaking of Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, we’re inspired to love Him and to love each other.
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