GUEST BLOGGER - Ken Morrison

Passover

This week is Holy Week to many Jews and Christians

The Story of Jesus' crucifixion is merged and linked to the Passover meal many people celebrate today (Thursday). 

Sometimes this is called Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday.

The Jewish celebration is called Passover

This year it starts on April 8 (yesterday) and ends on April 16 (next Thursday). 

The communion that Jesus first introduced was during the Seder meal with the disciples right before his death. Jews celebrate with a traditional Seder meal that is several courses and reminds them of the escape of the Jews from Egypt.

Before the last plague (where all of the first born were to be killed), God told the Israelites to take the blood of the lamb sacrificed for the meal and place it on the door above each home.

The Angel of death Passed over (Passover) the Israelite home and did not kill the firstborn

 Why does this remind me of our current time?

Let's be honest, many of us are praying for that same Passover in our lives, for our own families, friends and loved ones

We certainly don't want to be affected by COVID-19, and we don't want to experience suffering.

Like the Israelites, we might be living in fear.

We have promises from God that He will be with us through anything. As Jesus showed, death does not separate us from His love.

So what do we do? What can we do"?

Prayer

This Holy Week, please join me in prayer

• For this World

• For the Nation

• For our families, friends and loved ones

• For God to grant wisdom to scientists and those working on vaccines and treatments to battle COVID-19.

• For those we love will be passed over from illness and death.

• For COVID-19 and other deadly viruses would be destroyed.

In fact, join me and Pastor Andy as well as many from Fellowship to pray at 1:05 every day for all that’s going on today and let’s watch all God does in these unheard of times.

They say that confession is good for the soul. So I have to confess, it was me. 

I’m the reason we are in this mess right now. I know that God is the God of love but I forgot that he is also the righteous judge. I don’t know if this is a judgement from God but it sure feels like it to me. Oh, I want to blame everybody else but I can’t. If we look at biblical history God’s judgement always begins with His people. I am God’s child. When I go astray He does what He needs to do to bring me back. I’m sorry I did this to you. 

• I have allowed myself to become apathetic toward the church and people. 

• I’ve walked too close to that fine line that separates us from the world.

• Sometimes worship is just entertainment and I’m not really engaged.

• Sometimes I check out during the message because I’ve heard it all before. 

 God has called us to be a peculiar people, to be different from the world. But……

• I want everyone to like me. 

• My heart is hard and cynical. 

• I watch TV shows that push the edge of decency. 

• I think about this virus only because it could affect me but I don’t think about the children that are killed every day through abortion. 

• I wonder if there will be enough food and toilet paper at the store for me but I don’t think about the people that go hungry every day or who are homeless. 

• I pray but sometimes it is just repetition, not to connect with God but because I’m supposed to pray or I want something from him. 

• I haven’t truly put God first in everything.

So I am sorry! This mess is on me. But if you can relate to what I’ve confessed then maybe it is on you too! 

Thankfully our God is the God of second chances. So I am going to seek His face and confess my apathy and humble myself before Him. I’m going to work to get back to my first love. I want to be clay in the Master’s hands to be used for His Glory! 

 Will you join me?        

GUEST BLOGGER - Patrick Ringrose

About a week ago, while meditating after my morning Bible devotions, the Holy Spirit put something in my heart - “Go with what you know.” So, I asked myself what I absolutely know to be true about God.

First, that He is real.

Second, that everything does turn out alright.

These are things I know at the level of my soul, and I never waiver on. But sometimes I do get shaky in my faith, because faith applies to me; whereas what I know applies to God.

From my perspective, I believe God has got me, but sometimes I still get scared.

I believe He loves me, but sometimes can’t feel a thing.

I believe that His kingdom will come on earth, but then look at the state of the world and sometimes I doubt. (Or that it may come to pass in the very distant future, but that I’ll never live to see it.) 

Then I noticed something I wanted to share because it helps me tremendously in these unsettled times. When I’m thinking through the filter of faith - what I think, feel and believe, there is a far greater presence of the world’s fear and uncertainty. However, when I ‘flip the switch’ to what I know - that God is real, I am instantly calm, centered and peaceful.

What my gut knows is God-centered; my beliefs are me-centered. I think of Peter stepping out of the boat - as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus he was fine. When he looked down at his own feet on the waves, he sank. 

Try toggling your own internal switch (practicing really helps!).

When you feel worldly overwhelm, ask yourself this one question, “Is God real?” and see how that affects your peace of mind and soul. It works for me.

It has taken about 3000 years since the psalmist wrote Psalm 46:10 but God has finally done it. And I love how He did it. Because His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He did it with something that we can’t even see with the naked eye.

What did He do?

He has brought the world to a virtual standstill. He has slowed us down from the busyness we have created in our lives. He did this so that we do not have any excuse to not be still and know that He is God.

And what are we doing?

We are going crazy because we either don’t know how to slow down or we are afraid to be alone and quietly spend time with God. If you’re like me, spending quiet time with God can be scary. Why? Because His thoughts are higher than my thoughts and my thoughts go all over the place…..”SQUIRREL!”. Everytime I’m trying to hear from Him, I can get distracted. Some of my thoughts are downright crazy and I have no idea where they come from (well I have an idea). But I honestly think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity (home isolation) for us to slow down and look at our walk with God. Maybe we have been so busy serving God that we haven’t slowed down to see if we are serving in the area where He really needs us to serve in this season of our life.  

One of my favorite scripture verses is Isaiah 40:31. “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”

When this isolation is lifted will our strength be renewed?

Will we mount up with wings like eagles?

Will we be able to run and not be weary or walk and not faint?

Will we be ready to serve no matter where God calls us?  

We can spend this time fretting and worrying or we can wait on God and be ready to hit the ground running. And if we hit the ground running, then the second part of Psalm 46:10 will happen, God will be exalted among the nations and He will be exalted in all the earth.

Let’s not regret this all-important time in our lives

GUEST BLOGGER - KAREN GREENWOOD

At times like this, it seems that it’s the epidemiologists who know us best. Our habits and tendencies, our stubborn refusals and willful ignorance. Number-crunching and probability modeling can tell you a lot. And we are, in many respects, predictable animals.

So, what do predictable animals do in unpredictable times? That’s the question of the day. 

Our pastors remind us that the church is not a building or a place. It’s a collection of people. Be the church, they say, right where you are, with your hand sanitizers and face masks at the ready. Reach out to those in need, be patient with each other. Let people see the love of Christ in you. That’s what the church does.

Right now, this involves “social distancing,” washing your hands, and not gathering in groups. Changing our behavior, the experts insist, is the only means we have, until a vaccine is available, to slow the spread of COVID-19.

But are we willing to alter our behavior enough to help ourselves, not to mention the people around us?  Results so far have been decidedly mixed. Too many people, it seems, either don’t get it or just don’t want to hear it.

I’m betting on the latter.

Maybe it’s the circles I move in, but I’ve had the misfortune to know, and sometimes love, too many people who’d rather blow up everything than take a hard look at themselves and maybe adjust some of their own thinking and behavior. This is what love, and of course all honest relationships, sometimes demand. But fear, it turns out, is the worst contagion of all.

Still, our marching orders as Christians are pretty clear. Take care of each other. When Cain asked the Lord, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord didn’t dither. His response, and I’m paraphrasing, “Yes.”

My husband went to Home Depot recently. Spring is just around the corner, and our grass seed stock is low. In the parking lot, a man and woman stood near a car, arguing. Their agitated voices grew louder, as my husband passed.

The man hovered menacingly in the woman’s space. Then he started pushing her, shoving her back against the car. My husband froze on the spot. “Hey,” he called, “you can’t do that. Knock it off.”

The pusher glared. “Mind your own business.”

Another shopper passed, a middle-aged man with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. “I wouldn’t get involved, if I were you,” he advised my husband and continued into the store.

The pusher was a big, strong-looking guy, not somebody a sane person would want to mess with. My husband pulled out his phone and dialed 9-1-1. 

The pusher saw the phone, jumped his car, and fled the scene. He knew what was coming next. “He’s leaving,” my husband told the 9-1-1 dispatcher, who advised him to send the woman to the police station to file a report. 

 The woman approached my husband, in tears. She assured him that she would go straight to the police. “God bless you,” she said, hurrying away.

The shopper with the ballcap did not reemerge from the store during this fracas. And if anyone else in the parking lot noticed, they pretended that they didn’t. 

Mind your business.

The terrorized woman prayed that God would bless my husband for minding her business. 

 So, where does my business end and your business begin? And when does taking care of each other officially become our collective business?

 I’d say a pandemic is a good time to start.

Trials and temptations are our lot in life. No one is immune to them.

Jesus experienced them so why should we think we are any different. Unfortunately, many people turn back from Jesus when they start to experience trials and temptations. In Luke 22:25-30 Jesus talks to his disciples about who are the greatest in the Kingdom of God. And right in the middle of the discussion, after he tells them the greatest should have the lowest rank and be a servant to all, he says in verse 28 “you are those who have continued with me in my trials.”  Notice he said “my trials”. He experienced trials and temptations throughout all of his earthly life.

And what were his temptations?

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

And what trials did he experience?

He was mocked, falsely accused and lied about, betrayed, denied and deserted. They are all things we experience in our lives. Which brings us back to his words “my trials”. These are Jesus’ trials and temptations. He experienced them and then He took them to the cross and defeated them for us. They are His, not ours.

So why do we still experience them?

Because they continued throughout His life and He now lives in us, so they still continue through His life in us. Satan will not admit defeat. He is still attacking Jesus and since Jesus is in us, we are attacked. They are Jesus’ temptations, not temptations to us, but to the Son who lives in us.

Are you still with Jesus in His trials?

Are you taking on His trials as your own? 

They are not yours to take! He defeated them at the cross so lay them back at the cross where they belong!

The enemy is defeated!

Jesus will never leave you or forsake you!

He has overcome the world! 

In the life of the Christian there is no such thing as chance. Everything we experience and the people we come in contact with is ordained by God. This is what Romans 8:28 is talking about “we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purposes.”  

But what does God want us to do with these experiences and people we meet?

First, we must realize that God has brought us where we are to accomplish a specific purpose through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. No situation is unique or strange because God’s hand is in everything.

Then we need to pray. Our work in praying is not to worry about how to intercede but to just bring the matter before God’s throne and allow the Holy Spirit to intercede for them. Romans 8:28 comes to fruition because of Romans 8:26 “but the Spirit Himself makes intercession”. But the Holy Spirit cannot do any work through us if we are not surrendered to Him. That’s why each day we need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self –control and wisdom. Then as we are conscious of the Holy Spirits presence in our life, we are able to see how the circumstances we encounter are opportunities for us to intercede according to God’s will and not our own idea of how the circumstance should be resolved. Then all things will work together for good because it will be according to His will not ours.

And that’s a GOOD thing!

GUEST BLOGGER: Patrick Ringrose

James 1:2-5 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Pure joy. Really, James?!?

In the eye of the storm, it’s hard to feel anything like joy. This is where the aspect of work really comes into the walk of faith. It takes effort; consistent, determined effort. America doesn’t have an obesity problem because gyms and exercise aren’t working; it’s because people don’t work at their own health.

Same with faith – a nun at the junior high school I attended had a sign on her wall that read, ‘If you feel distant from God, guess who moved? ’

Working at faith now builds our perseverance and moves us closer to the heart of Jesus.

How hard are you working today in regards to your faith?