A Church with a Heart for our Community

September 16th Friday

Greetings to you in the name of the “Friend of Sinners”, Jesus Christ – THE Risen Saviour! Another delightful late summer morning and a promising start to the last weekend of summer 2016. I trust that you have a great week of adventures, blessings, and divinely orchestrated encounters. I will be praying for you today, asking God to surprise you in ways that will be unique to you and will make you smile.

As you know this is Friday…and that means ‘new music releases’! I have been waiting for a ‘cd’ by one of my favourite groups – Casting Crowns. I purchased it early this morning and have been listening to the songs through the morning and there is a grand mix of inspiring and challenging lyrics. The song that has caught my attention is one of those with rather challenging words titled – What If I Gave Everything. The words address the spiritual tension between what I say and what I do with what I say. Here are some of the lyrics: Why am I still standing here? Why am I still holding back from You? — I don’t want to look back someday on a life that never stepped across the line.  

I suppose that after my initial step faith, the most difficult aspect of the faith journey has been learning to yield and surrender and give control and to obey. I have taught, and I know to be true, that the letter “I” in the word ‘sin’ is a most strong letter…it never seems to go away. I can erase the ‘s’ and the ‘n’ but that ‘I’ just hangs around. So the song…’what if I gave everything’ – even the “I”, is quite challenging. In fact, Jesus taught that the surrender of myself is something that I need to do on a daily basis. I appreciate the things that I can give to Him once at a moment in time and that’s it. However the daily giving of myself – ‘my everything’ … well, that is an ongoing story and everyday, every surrender brings unexplainable peace and joy and hope. 

Have a great weekend – be blessed!