Church guide

Pentecost presents us with an opportunity to consider how we are living each day. Are we relying on the power of God’s Spirit? Are we an open channel for the Spirit’s gifts? Are we attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.) growing in our lives? Most Christians I know, including me, live in the presence and power of the Spirit, but only to an extent. We are limited by our fear, our sin, our low expectations, not to mention our tendency to be distracted from God’s work in us. Pentecost offers a chance to confess our failure to live by the Spirit and to ask the Lord to fill us afresh with his power. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/what-is-pentecost-why-does-it-matter/

Ponder this thought: The triune God is active love, reaching out to the creation and bringing the whole creation into fellowship. The story of this outreach stretches from the sending of Christ (incarnation) to ascension. From there the story of divine love goes on to include the sending of the Holy Spirit, whose work is the transformation of the creation until things are gathered up in the endless fellowship of the living God. In the whole sweep of this narrative, the ascension stands as a critical movement. Just as the incarnation reveals to us the outreach of the love of God, so the ascension reveals to us the transfiguration and the gathering up that is to come at the end. What happens to Jesus Christ--death, resurrection, and being raised in exaltation to the glory--will happen to us all. The ascension is a crucial moment of revelation, showing us the larger story of God’s loving action. It is a reminder that our lives are caught up in something far more grand than we can imagine.

Salvation is God’s idea and God’s work but God uses us in the process. Sometimes we, like Peter are trapped in “wrong thinking.” Ideas like Human traditions are more important than salvation The church should consist of “my” kind of people God has to do things my way God challenges our wrong thinking so we can be His effective instruments. God changes us as we walk with Him. God sometimes jars us through uncomfortable circumstances. God repeats the lesson until it sinks in. God changes us by getting us to see that He is sovereign and we are not. How has God challenged your ways of thinking lately? How have things changed for you?

Ponder this quote: "Our shared Why What question lies at the heart of our work?"

https://blog.faithlifecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/lewis.png Yes!

Ponder this quote: A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others including his enemies, and become the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. Gandhi

Ironically, I found a quote by Count Von Zinzindorf, a German Moravian who influenced and encouraged John Wesley, in a book of Spanish prayers I use. So I translated it from Spanish to English... A heart of love God, when my eye confronts my heart, and I understand that you have filled by heart with your love, I am speechless. Before, my heart was very small in your eyes, very tight in its compassion and very weak in its zeal for the truth. Then you chose to enter my heart and now my heart can see you, I can love all your people, and I have courage to proclaim the truth of your good news to everyone. Like wax in front of a bonfire, my heart has melted under the heat of your love. Count Von Zinzindorf

http://www.gooddirtministries.org/good-dirt-families/2014/07/18/a-prayer-be-the-gardener-of-my-soul

Looking this week at clearing away the clods of custom and routine - Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath (Luke 13); Peter ate with Gentiles until the visiting dignitaries from Jerusalem came. (Galatians 2). How do we walk in this new Jesus inspired faith? http://gardenbite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/dirt-clods.jpg http://gardenbite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/dirt-clods.jpg

Our hearts ache. We are praying.

Salvation is free, but the cost of discipleship is enormous. I try to hide from the truth, but when I read the Gospels and seek to live in communion with God, I discover both parts of the statement are dead-center truth. I can do nothing to earn my salvation. My redemption is a pure gift of grace, a gift offered to me without qualification or reservation. I am God’s child and no one or no thing can change that fact. Jesus Christ lived, died, and lives again to bring this gift of salvation to me in all of its fullness. My faith can appropriate this gift, but even my greatest doubt cannot change its reality. I am God’s beloved, embraced in God’s love for now and eternity. All words are inadequate to describe the extravagance and grandeur of the gift of salvation. Our hymns of praise and gratitude fall lifeless before the immensity of this gift. We simply and humbly offer all that we are to the One who offers us the option of becoming more than we are. In offering ourselves as fully as we can, we discover the cost of discipleship. For to bind our lives to Jesus Christ requires that we try to walk with him into the sorrows and suffering of the world. Being bound to Jesus Christ, we see barriers broken down and we are led to places we have never been before and to carry loads we have not even seen before. Having offered ourselves to Jesus Christ, we may expect to become the eyes, ears, voice, and hands of Jesus Christ in the world and in the church. The cost of salvation? It is completely free and without cost. The cost of discipleship? Only our lives--nothing more and nothing less. -Rueben P. Job Shawchuck, Norman and Rueben P. Job eds. A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God. (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2003) 135. http://www.onleadingwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/feet-walking3.jpg

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What a great reminder of the roots of Methodism. Definitely food for thought.

A statement from Rev. Donna Pritchard at the close of General Conference. We will continue to be a church where grace and mercy flow from God's hand in us and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lord of the morning I awake to this new day with all of its possibilities, its uncertainties, its many faces, and its underlying mystery. May I be able— in your strength— to move through this day free of anger or bitterness, so that when I meet my neighbor or encounter the stranger, I may recognize your face. Peter W. Millar © 1998 Canterbury Press, admin. By SCM Press

You know the thing you‘ve been thinking about doing, the neighbor you’ve wanted to talk with, the batch of cookies you’ve wanted to bake and take to someone God has laid on your heart? Do it. This week. God bless you.