Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father shake us free of and awake to the every day reality of our selfishness. Father, we daily struggle between "my will" and thy will." Help us to struggle more. Help us to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow after your Son. May our lives be full of dying to ourselves and lifting each other up. Father, in the name of Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, help us to trust you enough to love each other on your terms. Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Jesus Paid It All" by Kristian Stanfill
Your Morning Scripture: Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
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I don't blame us. And I do mean "us." It makes sense, given the culture we live in, that we would live a life so deeply gouged with forgetfulness. So many voices around us cry out their answer to who is the center of the universe, "You! You! You!" It's easy to forget that in God's Kingdom we are all servants. We are not kings. We are not queens. We are slaves to righteousness, eagerly putting others above ourselves, attempting to joyfully outdo each other in showing others honor and love.
We will forget, we have forgotten, and we are forgetting how the body of Christ, we the Church, should act. And that is why the seal on our gathering, communion, is emblazoned upon us, the body, with the call to "remembrance."
Do not go to Sunday morning service, or to Bible Study, or to anything we do as the Church together, thinking of what you can receive. Will I hear the songs I like? Will the sermon be to my taste? Will I get to sit in my favorite spot?
In the Kingdom of God it is better to give than to receive.
This Sunday morning join us as a part of our body, thinking of how you can actually bless some other part of the body. Trust in the Lord that some other part will bless you, and think only of how you can please Jesus by spurring someone else on towards love and good deeds, encouraging them.
In a world broken by self-centered sin, let us be the holy ones who walk between worlds, in the broken world, but not of it. And of the Unbroken Kingdom of God, even though we are not yet fully in it.
May we be a people that delight in what we can bring to our gathering together. And may we restfully entrust our own needs to our Father in Heaven and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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