Happy Tuesday Y’all!

15 Nov Happy Tuesday Y’all!

I do hope you’ve got the hatches battened down in this wind…and maybe even your warm socks close by because I hear it’s going to get chilly again tonight.

Also…do keep the flooding parts of our state & country in your prayers. We all know someone in harm’s way, or close enough to matter…and there’s enough damage to last for a few years’ worth of clean up. At some point I assume we’ll step up into a financial support role for the most seriously impacted…so be ready…It may have to really quit raining first before we get a clear word on what’s needed.

In the meantime…Let’s take stock of our week ahead:

1. Zoom Bible Study Catch-Up

Friday  — November 18th — 1:00 PM

Join Zoom Meeting  —  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88022194499  —  Meeting ID: 880 2219 4499

2. Sunday 20^th of November is a Morning Tea day. You know I love those days. It is also the last Sunday in the church year calendar. Traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday or the Day of Fulfilment. The themes in many ways parallel Easter…It’s like celebrating Christmas in July…AND we’re using the Sunday to really open ourselves up to the awareness of all that we have to be thankful for & praise God for…and we’ll do some of that. It’s also a time to remember that in Christ, God bears all our burdens to lift them from our shoulders granting us unparalleled freedom in Christ. We’ll celebrate that as well. It should be an awesome morning.
3. Thank you in advance to everyone who is stepping in to cover for me while our family celebrates Charis’ wedding. Worship is going to seem a bit different & (like Aldi says) different is good. Be there & bring a friend so they can meet the wonderful people who are Living Water Fellowship.
4. Before you know it…Christmas! As we move into the Advent & then Christmas seasons we’ll start seeing the familiar seasonal pieces of worship. Let’s make this Christmas a celebration to remember. Look for ways to multiply generosity, increase hospitality, and spread joy. There is so much in our world that might cause us to shrink away from our neighbours or our community…Let’s do just the opposite. For God crossed the greatest boundary of all between heaven & earth so we could be restored in his love…now it’s our turn to do the same…cross some boundaries so the Father’s love can take hold of someone else.
5. End-the-year-in-Blessing! I hope you’ve got your bookmark of blessings handy…and are using it daily. Today was the 5^th in the 50-verse series…so keep it up! I really want us prepared to enter 2023 with a renewed sense of how blessed we are & how those blessings from God are unending because we are united to Jesus Christ eternally. Let me know if one has spoken uniquely to you. I had someone ask me yesterday about a Bible verse that had particularly touched me & I pointed straight to 1 Peter 1:18-19…yesterday’s verse. Saturate yourself with these promises.
6. AND Living Water’s 10^th Birthday arrives in 2023. In January of 2013 we were given permission to “trade” as Living Water Fellowship & officially launched in June. What should we do to celebrate & thank God for these incredibly blessed in the challenges years? Obviously food…but what else? “What shall I return to the Lord, for all he has done for me?” – Ps 116:12

 

One of the things I’m being shown as I read the Scriptures is how God speaks so clearly at times when we are ready to listen…and in that there is enormous grace…

I shared a while ago Jeremiah 31:2 – This is what the Lord says: “Those who survive the coming destruction will find blessings even in the barren land, for I will give rest to the people of Israel.”

When, even in chaotic threatening times, we trust God’s protection & provision, we find exactly those things…blessings in the barren land.

Then today I’m reading Ezekiel 11:16 – “Therefore, tell the exiles, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Although I have scattered you in the countries of the world, I have been a sanctuary to you during your time in exile.’”

There it is again…even when God disciplines us for our failures to live his way in the world & we reap the awful result, he remains our sanctuary in our exile. Far from being abandoned when things go fully pear-shaped, God remains the refuge, where we are kept safe for him, in the midst of the storm.

Our world lives with so much fear & foreboding…so much anxiety & worry…so much self-pitying victimhood & do-it-my-self-ishness (what one writer calls “expressive individualism”). The only remedy is to reaffirm the Father’s claim upon us…to look for his blessings in the barrenness of the day & his protection & provision in the middle of the hardest seasons. I’m back anchored in those promises & there are hundreds upon hundreds throughout the pages of the Bible. I hope you’re seeing & delighting in them as well.

Be richly assured that God has you…and has no intention of letting go until his work in you is complete and you run free in his kingdom forever.

 

John