11-21-2017

Good Morning All,

               Galatians 5:25; “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

        A little boy was sound asleep in his bed when his mother came up to wake him.  “Get up Timmy; it is time to go to school.”  The little boy woke up and looked at his mother in total amazement; “you mean I got to keep going, I thought I learned it all yesterday!”  There are many times in our lives when we may feel the same way; I thought I did that yesterday.  You mean I have to do it again tomorrow and the next day as well?  Sometimes we feel like little Timmy; we just want to roll over and go back to sleep.

    Sometimes we may even feel that way in our faith life.  Yet Scriptures tells us something a little different.  Our faith life is a process not an event.  It is not even a series of events.  It is a lifetime journey that never stops or takes a break or time off.  God calls us, as his children, to a lifetime of faith.  He doesn’t want us to schedule our faith.  On Fridays I will have compassion, on Mondays I will have joy, on Tuesday I will love but I get Wednesdays and every other weekend off; that is not what a life of faith means.  A life of faith is a continual process of God’s mercy alive and active in our heart and in our life.

    This helps us when we don’t “feel” like we are loved or that we are close to God.  Faith is not dependent upon your feeling.  God’s mercy is not dependent upon your feeling.  God’s mercy is dependent on God.  God’s grace is dependent on God; neither depends upon us.  We have God’s promise to never abandon us or stray from us or to leave us alone.  We can always trust and know that this is true even if we don’t “feel” like it.  We have God’s sacred oath on this.

    So God encourages us and desires for us that we live each day in total communion with Him and that we live each day in faith with Him.  Will we always succeed?  No, we will slip and fall once in a while but we are to struggle onward, seeking his grace and knowing that His mercy is always there for us.  Yet God encourages us to live each day in faith for Him and in service to Him.  It is not to be a once in a while event but a continual process of living in prayerful conversation with Him.  We are to continually live out our life in the compassionate and loving service that God desires us to live.  It is through the Holy Spirit that God gives us the strength to live this faith filled process.

     There will be slips and falls along the way but the journey goes on and God grace is continually poured out upon your whole body and soul.  He daily restores us by his forgiveness so that we may continue our journey, freed from the slavery of sin and the devil; to live a new life in Him.

Gracious Lord, you are the shepherd who leads me down the path of righteousness.  Keep me in your flock that I may all the day long serve you.  Guide me by your grace and favor to be the child that you desire me to be.  Show me your ways and pour out your Spirit in my life that I may boldly walk the path that you have laid out for me.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret