Rebecca is one of many people who accepted our challenge to read 12 books in 12 months. In January, she read Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts by Jerry Bridges. This is her report...
Yeah! I did it! I finished the book today.
I am thankful for this challenge since I am not a reader and this is helping me become one.
My favorite lines from this book were when the author explained the reason why we should rejoice in our trials...
"It is not the adversity considered in itself that is to be the ground of our joy. Rather, it is the expectation of the results, the development of our character, that should cause us to rejoice in adversity........He does tell us to rejoice because we believe He is in control of those circumstances (trials) and is at work through them for our ultimate good."
The Christian life is intended to be one of continuous growth.
Jim and Angie shared last Sunday about our recent Crisis Pregnancy Counseling Course. It was just one more reminder of how our city is hurting and we have been called to help.
We must love Orange.
One way you can participate in our effort to serve our city is by contributing to our Expecting Mothers Gift Bags. We'll be collecting the following items this Sunday to wrap and deliver to Living Well Pregnancy Center:
Onesies
Receiving blankets
Pacifiers
Baby Books
Baby Soap
Small toys
Drop these items in the boxes this Sunday in the lobby and if you are interested in joining the ladies in assembling the gift bags on March 5th, email Angie for the details.
Ps. Don't forget to register for our Mercy Ministry Luncheon this Sunday too!
A team of church members and medical professionals from a number of different sister churches returned recently from a missions trip to the Philippines. Read all about how God met them as they served those who were suffering.
"God changed my heart without my permission."
We welcomed Jon and Julia as new church members this past Sunday. Here is part of what they shared...
Julia: I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home. Both my parents were missionaries in South America and I had heard the gospel many times. Yet my story is like many of yours. I loved the things of this world more than I loved my creator. God wasn't something I was interested in. I lived for myself.
It is by grace that I was saved. God won my heart and showed me how beautiful the gospel truly was.
I want to live now so others might see.
Jon: I was also blessed to be raised by parents who faithfully shared the gospel with me. I knew the gospel and I knew the Bible but I didn’t buy it. Even as a kid I loved myself and my sin more than I loved God. I tried to leverage Jesus as my ticket out of hell and for relief from a guilty conscience.
In spite of all this, God was rich in mercy towards me.
In the years since God first brought us to faith in Christ, there have been many ups and downs. There have been seasons when God seemed distant and we doubted our faith, seasons of struggling to trust God with our future, seasons of learning to sacrificially love each other and those around us, and seasons of growth when we grasped the gospel more deeply and were filled with joy to be on mission with God. Through it all God has been faithful to keep us.
One of the primary means God has used to grow us in Christlikeness has been His people, the church. That’s why we are so thankful that God led us to Sovereign Grace. Even on our first Sunday we saw how central the gospel was to everything you do. And as we’ve gotten to know you over the past 6 months we’ve seen a genuine love for Jesus that is open about failures, serious about change, and wholly dependent on God’s grace.
You have been so encouraging to our faith.
We are grateful that because of Jesus we can call you family. We look forward to getting to know all of you better, to sharing more details of our stories, and laboring with you for the spread of the gospel here and to the ends of the earth.
Christopher is one of many people who accepted our challenge to read 12 books in 12 months. In January, he read A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsdsen. This is his report...
I was struck by how average Edward's life was. We tend to venerate, even idolize, the "great men of faith", and Edwards is certainly no exception. Yet, for all of theologically rich writings he produced, there was still the rest of life to contend with. People opposed him, most thought he was too serious, he was prone to depression, he was terrible at small talk, terrible at reading people and even worse at understanding politics.
His church fired him.
On the other hand, he adored his children and his wife. He was concerned more for other's spiritual well being then temporal needs. His life matched his theology and he never lost sight of the reality that "the chief end of man is to love God."
I've always admired Edwards, but reading this biography help me appreciate the real Edwards. A man who was a largely-absent-slave-owning-depressive-controversial-way-too-serious kind of guy, yet experienced God's grace in every corner of his life.
We ought to expect God could do the same for us.
David Joshua, born December 27, 2015.
Congratulations Connie and John!