The last few weeks we’ve been lead by Pastor Stephen down a path of reflection on the concept of a holy sabbath. Together we were challenged to make places for holy rest and refreshment in our lives. We marveled at how God graciously provides us extra in our lives that we might take the time for prayer and worship. And, we learned of the freedom that comes through our times of rest with the Lord.
Read more...Introduction
The church universal and especially the unique, individual congregations of the church have had many meanings in the history of humankind and the history of the church. Many have seen the church as an arm of oppressive government; baptizing war, causing destruction, and stifling academic and scientific progress. For others, the church in its global and local form is a tool for political and social agendas; an agent of governmental and societal “progress”. For the faithful the church is an educator, a social club, a place of worship, a place of edification, a place of conflict, a place of love, and much, much more. The entities known as “the church” over the last many thousand years have at one time or another been negative and positive influences towards the reconciling efforts of our loving God.
Read more...Matthew 19:4-6 (ESV) He [Jesus] answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Dan Cathy: I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, “We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.” I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.
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