Lord of All Seasons,
We bask in the glory of Your love and peace. Each new day is a gift and You ask us to use that gift wisely. Help us look beyond our own concerns, Dear God. May we see the needs of others and respond. Jesus teaches us in his parables that we must give to receive, that the first will be last, that the neighbor is one who had previously been isolated by our prejudice. Teach us to live and love boldly, we pray. Empower us to share our experience of Your unbridled grace with others. May we strive to not be consumed by the culture, rather may we seek to transform the culture in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
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Davida Whitsitt and Paul Spratt are still hospitalized. Please keep them in your prayers.
Please also continue to pray for the families of Larry Richey and James Watkins.
Saturday we are doing an all-church cleanup day from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. We will have to work around some other groups, but we can do that. This is an opportunity to redo some storage areas, place books and curricula in a common area for review, disposal or storage, and get rid of a lot of unused items. Please come and help.
Sunday the Centours will meet for their monthly luncheon, the Great Recovery (Financial Peace University) free preview class will be at 3:00 p.m., the Elders will meet at 5:15 p.m., and we will host the “9/11 Prayer Vigil” at 7:00 p.m. It will be a meaningful and full day.
The scripture for today is Ephesians 5:21- 6:9:
21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother"—this is the first commandment with a promise: 3 "so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." 4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; 6 not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, 8 knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. 9 And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.
Grace and peace,
John McLemore
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