Worship

Sunday, November 3, 2024 — Exodus: Salvation in the Desert — Water

Leave a comment

Total need requires total help
~ Karl Barth

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.
~ Lisa Kleypas, 1964- , contemporary & historical romance novelist

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father’s heart.
~ Ann Voskamp, 1973- , Canadian Author, blogger

Exodus 17:1–7

Beloved, have you ever thought that someday you will not have anything to try you, or anyone to vex you again? There will be no opportunity in heaven to learn or to show the spirit of patience, forbearance, and longsuffering. If you are to practice these things, it must be now.
~ A.B. Simpson, 1843-1919, founder of Christian Missionary Alliance

Gentleness is very close to patience. It’s not surprising to find them both included in Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit. What’s the similarity and difference? Well, if patience is the ability to endure hostility and criticism without anger, then gentleness is the ability to endure such things without aggression. Gentleness shows itself when I’ve learned that the Christlike way to respond to conflicts and quarrels, rejection, unfairness, or harsh words spoken against me, is not with bluster and self-defense, not with harsh and aggressive words, not with angry gestures and facial expressions, not with prickles and spikes—but rather, with softness, controlling my tongue and my temper.
~ Christopher J. H. Wright, 1947- , Anglican Clergyman & Scholar

The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.
~ Barbara Brown Taylor, 1951- , writer speaker and spiritual contrarian

Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you remember Christ crucified and be silent.
~ John of the Cross, 1542-1591, Spanish Priest, Doctor of the church

Download this Sunday’s bulletin:Download

Worship

Sunday, October 27, 2024 — Exodus: Salvation in the Desert — Food

Leave a comment

Total need requires total help.
~ Karl Barth

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

Guidance, like all God’s acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God’s promise; this is how good he is.
~ James I. Packer, Knowing God, Hachette UK, 2011, p.212.

Exodus 16

It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

If I am in denial about my own weaknesses and sin, there will be a concomitant blindness to the greatness and glory of God.
~ Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.
~ Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, writer/professor of bio-chemistry

They say that love is blind, but it’s trauma that’s blind. Love sees what is.
~ Neil Strauss, 1969- , American writer

Trauma fractures comprehension as a pebble shatters a windshield. The wound at the site of impact spreads across the field of vision, obscuring reality and challenging belief.
~ Jane Leavy, 1951- , sports writer, biographer, author

Download this Sunday;s bulletin:Download