O Divine Presence,
It is a new day and we rejoice. We pray for Your blessing to be upon us, O Lord. We honor You and praise Your name, particularly as we gather in community to bring our worship to You. Help us today, Loving God, to be peacemakers and to be meek. May our lives reflect the teachings of Jesus and may we critique the values and norms of the culture when they are counter to Your will. We pray for strength, courage and the will to be faithful witnesses. In Jesus’ name we pray. AMEN.
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We continue to pray for Sue McClendon and Elbert Wheeler who are still hospitalized. Danny Corn has been released from the hospital and is at his home.
We continue to pray for the family of Shera Shirley. Her funeral was yesterday and her interment will be today at 9:10 a.m. at the old Enid Cemetery.
Remember to bring a fan to church to give to those in need. They will be distributed through the Salvation Army. If you want to write a check, just mark “fans” in the memo line.
I am teaching “Disciples 101 (revised)” in the multi-purpose room for the next two weeks. New members, prospective members, seekers and long time members are all invited and welcome. The class begins at 9:00 a.m.
Don is preaching in the 8:00 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. traditional services. Today is my monthly turn in R & R.
There will be an Elders Meeting today at 5:00 p.m. at the home of Sue and David Dell, 217 Deer Run.
The scripture for today is Romans 9:19-29:
You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they shall be called children of the living God.”And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.”And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”
The Psalm for this week is Psalm 95:
O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”
Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Grace and peace,
John McLemore
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