O God,
Each new day brings opportunities for praise, thanksgiving and service to You. Often the regular routine dulls us to the majesty and awesome beauty of all that is around us. It is easy to take so much for granted. We thank You for shelter and food, for neighbors and friends, for gainful work and the security of retirement, for good health and good doctors, for family distant and present, for good memories, and for a hopeful future. Forgive us, O Lord, when we get in a rut and become overwhelmed by the sameness of life. Open our eyes that we might celebrate and rejoice in all that is good in our lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
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Tim Simpson had additional back surgery on Friday, but is still having a difficult time with headaches. They are doing further testing. Please pray for Tim, Leah and their family.
L.V. Powell’s funeral is 10:00 a.m. tomorrow at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. The church is providing a meal for the family at approximately 11:45 a.m. Please pray for L.V.’s family and for the gracious servants of Central who share their love by caring for grieving families.
We are still basking in the glow of a wonderful VBS. Please continue to pray for the children, youth and adults who participated. May we continue to provide an environment where they can experience God’s love.
On a personal note: Carolyn and I are going to Perry today for the funeral of a longtime friend, Betty (Newton, Smith) Beasley. Please lift up her family in prayer. Carolyn grew up with her children and I did her first husband’s funeral in 1968. It was one of my first.
The scripture for today is Romans 15:14-29:
I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.”
This is the reason that I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you when I go to Spain. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things. So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.
Grace and peace,
John McLemore
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