Yippee and welcome to sensational Saturday. You have made it through another week and we are almost at the end of August. Time keeps on slipping…into the future.
Thank you to everyone that gave to support the orphanage in Haiti. That will be a huge help to them as they go back to school in September. Please pray for brother Jacques as he considers taking in a little six-month old girl whose parents were killed in the recent earthquake.
Pray for Pastor Edwin. He has been sick this week with Covid. He said he was feeling better last night. Pray that Ashton doesn’t get it. Pray also for other church members that are dealing with a variety of illnesses.
We are having a worship night this Friday beginning at 6:30. I hope that you can come and spend time with your church family in an evening of worship and fellowship.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you knew you needed to do the right thing but perhaps weren’t thrilled about it? A momentary internal struggle. A fleeting point in time where selfishness and selflessness were battling for first place in your life. The other day, several of us were at the church working on some things when that gnawing pain of starvation reared its ugly head. Ok, that is a slight exaggeration. It was around noon so, as is customary in the US, we decided we needed to get something to eat. After considering a myriad of options, we chose a nearby purveyor of fine cuisine. Fitsum and I jumped into my luxury sports car (actually it is a little econo-box) and sped off to acquire our vittles. Upon returning to the church, the first thing I noticed was that our homeless friend was now in front of the church talking with Crystal. By the way, Crystal and Kike were there because they had set up a little booth to give away free ice pops to those passing by. Anyway, as soon as I saw him there, I was glad because he had not been around for a long time. But sadly, I also knew what was about to happen. I had returned to the church before with my sack of delicious, nutritious food only to discover a homeless person on the bench in front of the church. What should one do in a situation like that? Drive past the church, park somewhere else, and eat your lunch in peace? Do like you do at the intersections when people are begging and not make eye contact? Immediately take a bite of your food so that it not right to give it to someone else? You wouldn’t want to share your germs with a homeless person right? Of course, the right thing to do is to offer them your lunch. Having had all of this go through my mind, we parked the car and got out. When I told Tim that I had purchased a pork tenderloin sandwich, he quickly said it was his favorite. Why couldn’t he have been abstaining from pork? Why couldn’t he have been craving a cheeseburger? Anyway, we invited him in and had lunch together. Fortunately for me, there was some leftover nearly stale bread, peanut butter and jelly. It was good to visit with Tim and show him some kindness that he likely does not get anywhere else.
One thing that you will discover in this life is that doing the right thing sometimes is met with a little resistance. Your first thought or response might not be as holy as you would hope for it to be. Sometimes we wrestle with what we know we should do, even seeking to rationalize our way out of things. We pray for opportunities and then, if we are not careful, we can overlook them when they come our way. Let me encourage you this morning to continue seeking to do the right thing in any and all situations. Maybe that is one way we are to train ourselves in godliness.
If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:7)
17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4:17)
From our neighborhoods to the nations,
Pastor Larry
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