This week Cee has asked us to show her our photographs of small things in Black and White. You can find lots of little things by clicking the underlined link to Cee’s site.
Here are my little things.
Black locust is a small flower with a very big scent.
Little girls watching the grass grow.
Nasturtiums, a little flower with big flavor.
Sharing time again folks!
Our hostess Cee from Oregon posts five questions we answer them and voila the world is shared.
In fact why don’t you check out answers from around the world by clicking on this link right here.
BUT FIRST HERE ARE MY ANSWERS!
What genre of music do you like?
I like classical, country and jazz but what I listen to most is Indie worship on Spotify. I love me some Brian and Katie Torwalt
What is the worst thing you ate this last week?
Last week was a week of what I would call functional eating. Which means I ate to live and keep running the engine but honestly I don’t remember any meal from last week which probably means I ate a lot of pop tarts and peanut butter toast. This week promises to be about the same. I see a lot of ramen in my future.
Would you like to be famous? In what way?
Not really. I am Okay with my current level of fame. There is a price that comes with popularity and it is truly a fickle thing.
Complete this sentence: This sandwich could really use some …
mayonnaise. Most everything is better with mayonnaise except of course peanut butter and cookies and pudding and well…. Most sandwiches are better with mayonnaise. 😉
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am grateful that I got to preach again last week at Cornerstone church. This week I am looking forward to our 5th annual C.cada art show. My sister and I are performing on Friday night.
Much can be said about the love of God, more than we have room for here. Still, we have begun speaking of it and so we must continue until our meager powers fail, though the depth of love never will.
If you have missed our conversation on God’s radical love up to this point, you can catch up
Now let’s continue with our discussion about God’s love…
God is crazy about you! He wants what is best for you! He sees what is best better than you do! Everything God does is motivated out of love for you and what is best for you. when you fight against it you are fighting against true love and your own blessing.
You see, God knows what is best for you because…He thinks about you constantly. In fact He cannot get you off of His mind Psalm 139:17-18
How precious are your thoughts about me,b O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
The truth is, He has been thinking about you since before the foundations of the earth. In fact,He had your life all planned out and was thinking about how to be involved in it before you were even born Psalm 139 goes on to say,
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16
God loves you. He knew every trial you would face. He knew every difficulty you would walk through and some of you have been through life threatening difficulties. He was there with you in them. You survived because of Him and He has a plan to redeem even the most evil of circumstances. He is going to give you back what you have lost. He is going to restore you to better than you were. He is going to heal the wound that Satan put in your body and in your spirit. He is going to save you unto eternal life because He loves you desperately. Remember, if you give Him an inch He’ll take a mile (see pt. 2) . All you have to do to experience that redemption, that deliverance, that healing, that restoration is let Him in and then follow where He leads.
How is your life leading you to God’s restoration right now?
We are in the second week of Cee’s “MANMADE CHALLENGE” and this week she has asked us to show her murals.
C.cada is the artist’s ministry of our church. A few months ago I asked our artists a question, “What is your God project?”
Several of our artists took up the challenge and donated their time and talents to refurbish the playroom in our local pediatrics ward.
Here are the results
Artist Lisa Johnson and her section.
Artist Elijah Haas at his post.
Ken Knowlton and his train.
The bridge that Charlotte Dorais built.
Wendy Brouillet the brick maker.
Yesterday we started a discussion on the love of God. If you missed it you can find the conversation…
Oh the deep deep love of Jesus!
Now on to today’s topic…
Do you understand God loves you? Because God loves you He is trying to save your eternal life.
To save your eternal life God continually works to draw you away from sin and into righteousness. He actively works to get sin out of your life. He is trying to rescue you from danger. Sin is dangerous. The truth is though,many of us don’t hold a biblical worldview of sin. We don’t really think sin is all that dangerous. In fact much of the time we consider sin just another form of fun!
And we are not wrong in that.
In Hebrews 11:25 we are taught that there is a pleasure to sin that lasts for a season. This is the part of sin that is fun. It is the part of sin that makes us think that God is trying to withhold something good from us when He tries to get us away from sin. Truth be told, It is pleasurable to sin.
But the Bible tells us that sin is a double-edged sword.
In Hebrews chapter 10 we are warned, “Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. 27There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.”
You see, God loves you enough to protect you from that which will ultimately destroy you.
Here is something else I know about God. If you give Him and inch He is going to take a mile. This is something that many of you didn’t get when you invited Jesus to be Lord of your life. Jesus is absolutely crazy about you. Because He loves you, He is not content with just a tiny little bit of you. That being said, many of us joined the faith thinking we were just going to get forgiven of our sins by Jesus. We thought we would have this passing acquaintance with Him. You know what I mean. We planned to visit Jesus for special events. We planned to check in with Him when it was convenient. We thought we might do stuff for him if it wasn’t too inconvenient. Nothing serious. Easy Peasy.
The only problem is that is not how God thought about it on the day you approached Him for forgiveness. On that day, He moved in and set up residence. He started trying to take over. Now you find God is messing with your life and you don’t like it. You want to be forgiven. God wants you to be Holy. You want to go out and party on a Friday night after work and God shows up in your heart and starts making you feel all guilty about that drink in your hand or the girl at your hip. He just won’t leave you alone.
You feel like David in Psalm 139 when he said
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave,a you are there.
9If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Do you ever feel like you cannot get away from God but you wish you could?
Jennifer has challenged us to show our readers autumn with our photos.
You can see lots of fallish photos by clicking the link above.
Here in New England we just passed Columbus Day (which in Massachusets is a statewide day off). It is one of the last days for outdoor activity here in the North East from here on out we are preparing for and expecting winter.
That being said, Amanda (my oldest daughter) , Brenda (my sister) and I took a ride north to do the quintessential Yankee activity on Columbus Day. We went leaf-peeping.
This is the river between Chesterfield and Brattleboro VT.
The Westminster Baptist Church, Westminster MA
We went as far as Bellows Falls Vt. and the world famous Vermont Country Store.
Enjoy the autumn everyone. Snow will be flying soon enough!
Cornerstone Church in Winchendon is doing a study through the book, Good or God by John Bevere. The comments of our Sunday morning sermons have been loosely based off this work for the last three weeks. Our lead Pastor has been away for a few weeks with family and that has given me the opportunity to share from the pulpit.
Here is the beginning of last Sunday’s sermon, “Jealousy Demanding As the Grave.”
Death is a powerful force. If you do not believe that just ask anyone who has had truck with it this year. It is called in 1 Corinthians 15, “the final enemy”. Many families in our congregation have confronted this enemy in the year 2015 and have fresh knowledge of just how devastating a meet up with this monster can be. It takes one life and crushes an entire group of people.
But today I have good news! Death may be a powerful force but the Lord Jesus Christ is even more powerful! Death may be mighty but the love of God is mightier still!
Listen to what the Bible has to say in this regard:
love is as strong as death,
its jealousyc as enduring as the grave.d
Love flashes like fire,
the brightest kind of flame.
7Many waters cannot quench love,
nor can rivers drown it.
Song 8:6,7
Do you know that God loves you?
I mean do you know that God really loves you?
I mean do you know that God is passionately crazy about you?
Last week I shared a hard word (Saulish Worship) this week I am sharing the balance to that word. I am sharing “the sweet words of faith.”
God loves you! In the Psalms He calls you the apple of His eye. You are like the pupil of God’s eye, the first one He will raise His hand instinctively to protect. That is why He sent Jesus to die in your place because He was trying to instinctively protect you. Jesus died so that you can have life. All you have to do us accept His death on the cross and follow God out of the danger sin creates.
How does a person follow God out of the danger sin creates?
More tomorrow…
Hey there folks! Here is a new challenge for all my Sunday readers. Every Sunday I will post one quip or quote that struck me during the week. You can join along in the quipping and quoting. Here is what to do.
Publish a post of your own using one quip or quote that grabbed you during the week. You can add a picture to it if you like or even photograph the quote from it’s source.
Link back to my post
You can include the Pastor Wrinkle’s Q& Q photo in your post if you think my mug worthy of your blog.
“The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.” Rev. Barry Risto
Holy cow! I somehow missed a whole week and autumn has burst out all over. These are the leaves out in front of the church where I have been so busy these last weeks.
Join us for 2015’s Festival of Leaves
The days are getting shorter the colors are getting brighter.
Apparently I missed last week’s post so I am doing two this week! Join us at Festival of Leaves
