9-12 Clothing Closet (Note: we have placed a big trash can outside for people who drop clothing other thanmornings.. is preferred)
NOTE: Our Celebration offering envelopes will be used to fund help for the needy in our fellowship and those God is sending to us. We will buy grocery and other gift cards to use as needed to help others around us.
Good MorningBuilders and Rebuilders! Amen! The Bible reminds us we are to be rebuilders of walls and cities and for us that means people too as we restore and bring new life! It's part of our Great Commission to go make disciples. As we gaze around our area and country we often see dilapidated, run-down, and destroyed communities in need of restoration and so it is with the souls living there. Slums, tent cities and shelters have become too common placein many cities. If the Church was doing what it can with what's provided, we would see much less of this. And the start of that is reaching the least of these who have wandered and the prodigals that are living in the pig styes. Looking around Emmaus area we find homelessness is rampant and many gathering together and usually not in homes in need of help and community. We meet some of these people at bread ministry/clothing closet and do what we can. However we can always do more to bring hope, help, healing and the love of God alive as people are restored, revived and helped to feel safe, loved, fed and cared for.Where might we be able to expand our help?How might God be calling you to minister to one of these, His children?Let us continue to cover our serving ministries in prayer and provision which includes time, talent (people) and treasure. The needs are great and the workers few.What's your part?Talk to God and process with some friends and then go love like Jesus! Be His hands and feet, givers and helpers and prayer warriors. Amen! Even if you can't physically help, your part can be to pray and to give. Talk to God about what He wants from you as we reach the least of these and do what we can with what we've been given! Thanks! Amen!
Contemplate Our Daily Bread devo forand process with some friends and brainstorm ideas to go live and love more like Jesus and according to His provision and call for you.May we love sacrificially like Jesus!He has blessed us to be a blessing. Amen! Part of our spiritual gifts from God is to be used to grow His Church, part to encourage others (be a Barnabas) and part to help us repent and walk more fully in the Jesus Way. Go! Be Jesus and grow in your faith, blessings and potential in Christ.God has great plans for you and us!Amen! Yes rejoice! Father, send us! Thank You for Your provision and for hearing our prayers. Lead us to be Your hands and feet as restorers and rebuilders and faithful servants who live and love more like Jesus. Yes send us! Thank You! Amen!
In, a fire broke out in Notre-Dame de Paris—the city’s famed medieval cathedral—destroying the spire and a “forest” of oak beams supporting the lead roof. Almost immediately, plans formed to restore the cathedral. Donations poured in from across the globe, and craftsmen have undertaken restoration using the same building techniques and the same types of timber and stone employed in the original structure.
When Nebuchadnezzar instructed his armies to set fire to God’s temple in 586 bc as part of his siege on Jerusalem, the structure was decimated (2 Kings 25:9). When the people returned to Jerusalem after decades in captivity in Babylon, they “gave freewill offerings toward the rebuilding of the house of God” (Ezra 2:68).
After tending first to the altar, they “gave money to the masons and carpenters” and secured “cedar logs by sea from Lebanon” to lay the temple’s foundation (3:7). Though their rebuilding efforts were opposed and even sabotaged, the task was finally completed, and God’s people once again worshiped Him in His temple (6:14-22).
As believers in Jesus, we—together—are God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). God equips us to continuously restore fellow believers and “build each other up,” not with wood or stone, but with encouraging words, prayer, and spiritual gifts (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
By Kirsten Holmberg
REFLECT & PRAY
How are you building up fellow believers in Jesus? How has someone built you up recently?
Thank You, loving Father, for supplying what I need to build up and restore others as Your temple.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Just as God equipped the leaders and priests to encourage the Israelites (Ezra 2-3), throughout the ages, He’s equipped others to be encouragers. A prime example is “Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus,” better known as Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36). God used him to speak on Paul’s behalf to the disciples, who were fearful because of the apostle’s former role as persecutor of the church (9:1-4, 26-28). Barnabas also taught the believers in Jesus in the church of Antioch, where he “encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts” (11:23). Later, Barnabas sought out and brought Saul to work with him. Just as God gave others the tools needed to encourage others, He can do the same for us.
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