Well, morning is over and the afternoon is well on it's way, but it's never to late to say "Thank you!"
1 John 3:16-24 (The Message)
16-17This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.
18-20My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
21-24And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.
1) I give thanks that God's Love goes before my failings. I give thanks that God has loved me before I even had an inkling about God. I give thanks that the Love of God is deeper, wider, broader, stronger and incarnate in the world in ways I cannot even begin to imagine.
2) I give thanks that our self-criticism within the Body of Christ can be shut down by the Love of God. Thank God that condemnation and accusation are not signs of God's Love. Thanks be to God for those who practice God's Love among us.
3) Thank you, God, for the team that has stepped up to help the youth. Thank you, God, for Javier, Greg, Abia, Martha and others who have stepped into the gap and done their best to make God's love real to our youth in the last few weeks.
4) Thank you, God, for the new Personnel Committee that is seeking out a way to practice real love through listening.
5) Thanks be to God that our worried hearts are not greater than God's love and that in the end "all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well." (St. Julian of Norwich)
What is well with you today?
Pastor Rick
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