REMINDER: The Rally Day envelopeswill be used to fund our new "IN" account to be used to purchase curriculum, teaching materials, and items needed for all of our "IN" gatherings and huddles.
St. Matts happenings for the weekend: Ron Williams funeral today 11am service. Clothing Closet tomorrow (Sat) 10-1, worship Sun at 10(discussing John 7 and 8. What's God saying to you?) and a season of prayer 2-4 in our sanctuary. Join us for one or all! Bring a friend!
T.G.I.F. Thank God I'm Forgiven! Amen! PTL! Hallelujah! We can know that we know that we know that we are forgiven, have new life in Christ, are putting on our new nature and His righteousness, and secure in our future destination! Praise be the Lord, our Savior, Lord, Creator, Sustainer, Helper, Friend and our righteousness. Our sins have been forgiven once and for all time and He is faithful to His promises to forgive, cleanse and direct repentant, soft hearts. He promises to take away our hearts of stone and give us soft hearts. He promises us the gift of His Spirit, our Helper and Advocate and Seal of Faith. We are God's masterpieces, made new in Christ and full of potential and ability to accomplish all His plans for us because of our believing, repenting, soft and willing hearts! PTL! PTL! Begin Your day with some praise and worship!
Good Morning Very Loved, Very Blessed, Worshiping, Other Worldly, Disciples (apprentices) and Apostles (sent ones) of Christ! We were created in love to go love like Jesus as we grow from being one way to another in Christ. We were born with great potential. As we put on our new nature and allow Christ to shepherd us and learn from Him, we put on His easy yoke and learn to walk well in faith and service with Him. PTL! We are learning to live otherworldly in this world. People talk about aliens from outer space all the time and illegal aliens too. But we are citizens of heaven and earth, aliens and strangers here learning to live for Christ as we carry on our responsibilities on earth. We are learning how to be in the world but not of it as we grow into good ambassadors of Christ. We all have a purpose in Christ and different purposes daily and, as we age. We have custom made purposes for who we were made to be in every season of our life in Christ! And we are equipped, provided for and helped to find and fulfill those purposes! PTL! We are apprenticing under Jesus and sent to live and love like Him as we grow into our fuller potential in Christ. As Pastor Al taught us it's like building the airplane as we fly it. That takes soft hearts and willing feet to tweak as we go and as we follow. God is for us and with us and can do way more than we could ever imagine! He does have plans to prosper, not harm. But we may need to go through some valleys and tweaking ourselves as we walk with Him. It is an honor and privilege to follow Him with you as we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to our fuller potential and God's greater things for us! Yes PTL!
Check out our devos below as you worship, praise. listen, receive, learn and prepare for this day! You are loved, are learning and adapting and adequate in Christ! You have doable purposes custom made for you as you travel through this life. PTL and follow well today! Maybe meditate on these songs as you prayerfully open your Bibles and read and meditate on these devos. God is speaking to you, pronouncing love and favor over you and reaching out to take hold of your hand to walk with you. Reach out to Him with a soft heart, willing feet and open ears and eyes. Ask Him to help with that and for His will to be done, in, through and around you. COME! Amen!
Here's a couple of songs to end your time of prayer, praise and worship and to prepare your hearts to follow and serve well today:
Upper Room (UR): Love Notes
Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39 (NRSVUE)
Early in our relationship, my husband gave me a card with a beautiful love note. After many years of marriage, I don’t need a note to know how much he cares. It’s evident in the things he does and the way he acts toward me every day. Even though we sometimes don’t come to terms in certain situations or have a disagreement, I know his love for me is steadfast and certain. I find great comfort in this.
God’s love for us is like the steady love my husband shows me, only greater. At times, like when I lost my job of twenty years, when I faced grief, or when I heard the words of a frightening diagnosis, I shook my fist at God wondering where God’s love had gone. Yet, it was there all along: in the kindness of a friend, in the skilled hands of a doctor, in the sunrise of a new day, in the blossoms that herald the promise of a new season. These are God’s love notes to each of us. Do we recognize them?
TODAY'S PRAYER
Gracious God, your love is at work in our lives at all times. May we be instruments of this love, sharing it at every chance through kind thoughts, words, and deeds. Amen.
Our Daily Bread(ODB):
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Eric heard about Jesus’ love for him while in his early twenties. He started attending church where he met someone who helped him grow to know Christ better. It wasn’t long before Eric’s mentor assigned him to teach a small group of boys at church. Through the years, God drew Eric’s heart to help at-risk youth in his city, to visit the elderly, and to show hospitality to his neighbors—all for God’s honor. Now in his late fifties, Eric explains how grateful he is that he was taught early to serve: “My heart overflows to share the hope I’ve found in Jesus. What could be better than to serve Him?”
Timothy was a child when his mother and grandmother influenced him in his faith (2 Timothy 1:5). And he was likely a young adult when he met the apostle Paul, who saw potential in Timothy’s service for God and invited him on a ministry journey (Acts 16:1–3). Paul became his mentor in ministry and life. He encouraged him to study, to be courageous as he faced false teaching, and to use his talents in service to God (1 Timothy 4:6–16).
Why did Paul want Timothy to be faithful in serving God? He wrote, “Because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people” (v. 10). Jesus is our hope and the Savior of the world. What could be better than to serve Him?
By Anne Cetas
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What have you learned about Christ that you want someone else to know? Who could use your help and whose help might you need?
Dear God, please give me a heart to bring Your hope to those around me.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul’s letters to Timothy include quite a few challenges to stop false teaching in its tracks (1 Timothy 4:1–7; 6:2–5; 2 Timothy 2:14–19). In his first letter, Paul gives Timothy the tools he wants the young pastor to use in dealing with falsehoods: “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13).
By keeping the Scriptures front and center in the churches that Timothy served, he offered an antidote to the “godless myths and old wives’ tales” (v. 7) that seemed to always plague the churches. Timothy’s best defense against incorrect doctrine was Scripture itself (2 Timothy 3:16).
Jed Ostoich |
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Charles Stanley:
The Word for You Today (TWFYT)
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