HELP

Have you ever been so tired that you couldn’t think? I feel that way right now. So I asked God to talk to me and He took me back to this familiar verse pointing out how important the attitude within its words is for us all.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalms 139:23 - 24 (NLT)

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

God I acknowledge that you exist and are all-powerful and all-knowing.

God has the ability to look into every man’s heart, his inner thoughts

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

I submit myself to you God.

I may not even know my own thoughts and anxieties, perhaps I’m afraid to, but I know that You do and can help me.

Point out anything in me that offends you,

God, if you find something in my life, even my thought life, point it out so that I might make things right with You.

and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Your Son, Jesus, is the Way, the Truth and the Life and I want to follow Him. Help me to do that dear Lord. I want to be with You forever because that is what You intended. Help me to please You.

When you become tired, weary, and need help even to think, call on the Almighty God. He has promised to help. He alone can restore us to the image, His image, in which we were originally created for His glory.

²⁹ He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. ³⁰ Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. ³¹ But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:29 - 31 (NLT)

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COMMUNITY

Have you ever noticed, with children, that when something bad happens they are quick to point the finger at the wrong doer? Actually, not just children do that. We adults are just as guilty!

I was reading this morning about a man who loved God and wanted to please him greatly. He had just found out that many of his people had not been following the commands of God, including the leaders and rulers.

Listen to the opening line of his prayer…

I prayed, “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. Ezra 9:6 (NLT)

Ezra included himself in the prayer when he said, “…our sins.” I wonder if we in the church today could take a lesson from Ezra. Rather than praying, “Lord fix them for they are sinners,” perhaps we should be praying, “Lord have mercy on your church. Help US to be faithful to You.”

Here is how Ezra ended his prayer…

O LORD, God of Israel, you are just. We come before you in our guilt as nothing but an escaped remnant, though in such a condition none of us can stand in your presence.” Ezra 9:15 (NLT)

We have to be careful that we don’t adopt an attitude of “I’m holier than you” and instead realize that NONE of us is worthy or able to stand in the presence of God on the merit of our own behavior. Only the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, gives us that right.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. ³ They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalms 14:2 – 3; Romans 3:10 (NASB))

Pray for each other and encourage each other for we have the same Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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SIMPLE

More than every, people are searching today for the “meaning of life,” the reason for their existence and what happens after we die. The answer is simple.

Many who were not brought up going to church have heard this verse…

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NASB)

It is very powerful and contains key truths for all of us…

1. God

…The Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe and beyond

2. God loved the world

…not just the “pretty people” or the popular, He loved and loves everyone

3. God gave

…not just a bracelet or a book, but His only Son, Jesus Christ

He did this so that His Creation, you and me, might once again have communion with Him. Jesus paid the price for our sin by dying a horrible death on the cross.

Whoever believes…

You and I or anyone else on this planet…will live forever with God if we only believe in what God has done for us through His Son Jesus.

The Gospel is simple. Share it with someone today.

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BEWARE

Have you ever been involved in something that you thought was really great? You knew that this was something you were supposed to do and it would benefit many people. Oddly enough, there seemed to be people against what you were doing.

I suppose there are various reasons that people would not want to see something good happen…

• They didn’t think of it
• They don’t trust the person doing the good thing
• They’re doing something they feel is important and don’t want the spotlight on their project to diminish

Regardless of that, we must keep doing what we believe is right, what we believe God wants us to do. Look at this situation recorded in Ezra when the people were rebuilding the Temple…

Ezra 4:1 - 5 (NLT) ¹The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were rebuilding a Temple to the LORD, the God of Israel. ²So they approached Zerubbabel and the other leaders and said, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God just as you do. We have sacrificed to him ever since King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.” ³But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other leaders of Israel replied, “You may have no part in this work. We alone will build the Temple for the LORD, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus of Persia commanded us.” ⁴Then the local residents tried to discourage and frighten the people of Judah to keep them from their work. ⁵They bribed agents to work against them and to frustrate their plans. This went on during the entire reign of King Cyrus of Persia and lasted until King Darius of Persia took the throne.

1. ‘Enemies’ will try to worm their way inside.

I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. ³⁰Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following. Acts 20:29 - 30 (NLT)

2. Those same ‘enemies’, when not allowed to be part of the good work will try to destroy it.

Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. Matthew 26:59 (NASB)

So what do we do? We keep going, trusting God for the outcome.

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Joshua 1:7 (NLT)

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ADAPT

People disagree on many things; music styles, architectural design and clothing are just a few. Those of us that are older can lament in the “way things used to be” or we can rejoice and adapt to the way things are now.

By that, I do not mean that we are to rejoice and adapt in the face of apathy in the church or turn a blind eye to hypocrisy or sin. However, when new ways of doing things are introduced by a younger generation and they are in line with God’s Word, we should rejoice because they care enough about God to be involved in the first place.

They sang, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, saying, “For He is good, for His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. ¹²Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, ¹³so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away. Ezra 3:11 - 13 (NASB)

My prayer is that the weeping and lament of the older generation would be drown out or changed into rejoicing on account of the praising of the Lord by the younger generations that have chosen Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Let us work together toward honoring the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, in all that we endeavor. Let us be unified in the Spirit of Christ and do away with our self-concerns.

Let us be like the father that Jesus spoke about in Luke 15 upon the return of his son, and not like the brother who was jealous…

⁶When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! Luke 15:6 - 7 (NLT)

Let us go forward together, in obedience, showing love to all and being Christ to all.

SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD

SONG...

PRAISE
God for all the work done at the SPRING yesterday. Adam and Chris hung the bathroom doors and raised and reversed our last exit door! A big "thank you" to Courtney, Sharon and Bea as well.

PRAY
We are looking at opening the SPRING Student Center on Thursday, August 30. That way people are settled into their new routines at school. HOWEVER...we need your prayers for two VERY IMPORTANT items:
1. We still have no air conditioning installed at the SPRING and it is very warm.
2. Our electrical work is still not completed.
We DO KNOW that God is faithful and able to provide all that we need...

WORD...SONG

When something really great happens in your life, I’ll bet you can’t wait to tell somebody. That’s the way we are; we want to share our “good news” with everyone.

Perhaps one of the major differences in being a follower of Christ and someone who is not, is to whom we give credit for the good things that come into our lives. If we are saying, “I did this” or “I did that,” we are drawing attention to ourselves. On the other hand, if we say, “Look at what God has done” we are drawing attention to Him. After all, God is the giver of all good things…

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. James 1:17a (NLT)

When God did something great in the lives of the people in the Bible, they wrote a new “song” so that God’s deed would be remembered. Look at the Song of Moses in Exodus 32, the Song of Deborah in Judges 5, Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46 or the Songs (Psalms) of David. They each recount how God has done something wonderful in the lives of His people.

He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD. Psalms 40:3 (NLT)

So, when something good comes into your life, make sure you’re giving credit where it belongs and sing your “new song” to the Lord. Let everybody know how great He really is so that they will want Him to be their Lord as well.

SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD