Thoughts from Quarantine

By David Phillips

I hope each of you had good worship experiences yesterday.  Beth and I were able to find and use some really good resources online, but I’ll have to admit, there’s nothing like being there.  As long as our church family is separated from being able to worship together, I thought I’d try to send out a few emails in which I’ll try to share some encouraging thoughts.  We’ll call it Thoughts from Quarantine, but of course that’s a little bit of a misnomer.  I’m definitely not quarantined, still working all day every day.  I guess at the Water Works, we are considered “essential services”, since someone has to deal with all that toilet paper you’ve been buying.

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Entering and Leaving Our Gethsemane

By Dan Jenkins

Perhaps as we meditate, we should spend more time with Jesus in Gethsemane. On the night of His betrayal, that garden was filled with intense emotions. Do not just read what happened there but take time to feel the emotions: the emotions of the sleeping disciples whom Jesus rebuked; the emotions of Judas as he betrayed the Lord; the emotions of the mob; the emotions of the disciples as they fled. Above all, share in the emotions of Jesus.

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Finding God in the Dark Days

By Fenter Northern

CHRISTIANS LOVE walking with God in the sunshine so much Henry J. Zelley wrote the popular hymn, Walking in Sunlight, in 1899. It’s easy to be a Christian when all things go well.

Then suddenly the ceiling falls through in one’s world and down crashes the curtain on our happy sunlight Christianity. We should be aware that Paul’s encouragement to “walk in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light,” is talking about the light of truth. Truth is still truth whenever darkness falls around us. John wrote God is light, 1 Jn. 1:5., but that does not mean He cannot be found in the dark moment of your life. Moses said he drew near to God on a very dark day: Exo 20:21 “And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.”

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Extreme Stubbornness

By Brett Petrillo

As a plane was on its way to Paris, a report came in about extremely heavy fog throughout the city. The fog was so severe that landing the plane in Paris was completely out of the question. So, the aircraft was diverted to another city about 190 miles away, where the passengers would be carried home by charter buses at the airline’s expense. One would think that most passengers would be frustrated by the delay, but understanding of the dangerous situation. Not on this plane.

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11 Tips for Better Worship

By Jack Wilkie

We all get caught going through the motions sometimes. We all know that our God deserves more, though, and we know that the more we put in the more we’ll get out. Here are 11 things you can do to better engage your heart in worship, particularly on Sunday.

1. Pray before you go. There are so many things we can pray for to get our minds in the right place. Give thanks for the blessings of the week to get the mind focused on why we worship. Pray for those leading worship. Pray that the cares and distractions of the world would be taken away. Pray for an open heart and mind.

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The Life-Giving Stream

“Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Ezekiel 47

From this wistful text written by this fine young Jewish priest, we see with our mind’s eye one who is swept away in a beautiful vision to his cherish homeland.

For decades he has been in exile in the pagan land of Babylon. Still burning in his mind is the heartbreaking deportation by Nebuchadnezzar’s army driving God’s wayward people, his kindred, out of the burning city of God. Ezekiel’s graphic vision still captivates one’s thinking now. We can see that river flowing from beneath the temple’s altar. Ezekiel said it was flowing from the heights. What we must see here is that all hope for this dead, barren wasteland on earth is to be reckoned only from God. In him alone is there any hope for a better world. Jeremiah said, “It is not in man that walks to direct his own steps,” yet, all his proposed planning is continually on the horizontal plain. Utopia is to be found here if man can utilize his own power to make it happen — but it never happens. God says such thinking is a blind hallucination. Hope flows only from the altar of God.

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Patches, Skins and Operating Systems

By Cory Waddell

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins-and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.
Mark 2:21-22 (ESV)

To modern Americans these illustrations may seem a bit strange. However, the first century audiences understood them clearly. It is impractical and unhelpful to mesh something brand new with something that is worn out because the new substance will destroy the old. They are incompatible with one another.

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Whose Name is on the Mailbox?

by Tom Young

Robert Gaylor, retired former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, is one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in Air Force circles. His down to earth approach, mixed with his leadership acumen, has inspired thousands of Airmen around the world.

One of the stories that has stuck with me for many years, is one he calls, “Because Our Name is on the Mailbox.” The story is about he and his neighbor, both older (nearing elderly status) outside working in their yards in the unbearable Texas summer heat. Both were lamenting to one another how much they disliked the work they were doing and how hard it was. Finally, after several minutes of complaining, the neighbor asked Robert, “Why exactly are we doing this?” His reply was simple, yet profound: “because our name is on the mailbox!” Translation: these yards are our responsibility and we can’t expect anyone else to take care of what is ours.

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God Knows Fathers

by Dan Jenkins

It is easy for us think of our omniscient God in a general sense. God knows the actual weight of the earth and measured the entire universe with the span of His hand (Isa. 40:12). We know that the heavens show this wisdom and glory to all men. However, sometimes it is not easy to think about what God knows about us individually. Let’s take time to look at what God knows about fathers, but each of us can make our own application to our lives even if we are not fathers.

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Sharpening Our Spiritual Senses

by Corey Waddell

[Recently] we observed how easy it is to become dulled to the world around us and the damage such desensitization can do to us. However, it is not sufficient to just acknowledge the undesirable. We must also work proactively to make ourselves better. This week we will explore some suggestions of how we can do more than just avoid being dulled. How can we sharpen our spiritual senses in an era of constant exposure to undesirable things?

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