“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV
What a beautiful picture Jeremiah paints for us here: a vision of calm, serenity and peace…a vision of a life rooted in deep soil.
In this Christmas season; as we remember the birth of the Messiah, we ought also to remember His mother. She was no ordinary woman. She had the stomach to deal with the threat of King Herod. She was a strong enough parent to reprimand her teenage son for worrying her when He dallied at the temple. She was bold enough, when He had reached manhood to tell Him to do something about a rapidly diminishing wine supply at a wedding banquet. She was fearless enough to take her other boys with her to Capernaum to rescue Jesus from death threats. And she was tough enough to follow Him all the way to the cross, to watch her boy die, when all His men had deserted Him. She was quite a woman, our Mary.
Some time ago I came upon this article and thought it was very good. As “insiders” we are very at home when it comes to church. We are quite comfortable with our worship. It is therefore difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of a guest who has little experience of Christianity and no experience of Sunday morning worship. It is a different perspective.
If an alien arrived on our planet and went looking for “love,” I wonder what he would find. Here is what I imagine happening. He starts by looking at the sexes. Our species now spends countless hours absorbed in media. So, he begins by tuning in to some “reality TV” like “Jersey Shore” and “The Bachelor” to get a feel for our “culture”… (I use that word loosely). What he sees in these shows about friendship and the romantic bond turns out to be about nothing more than desire, abuse, and competition for affection.
We Americans are a confident people. I read the other day that in a recent survey, ninety-four percent of our college professors believe they have above average teaching skills. A survey of our high school students found that 70 percent of them believe that they have “above average” leadership skills and only 2% believe that they have “below average” leadership skills. Our students also have great faith in their mathematical ability, while students in Japan and South Korea have much lower self confidence…and much higher test scores.
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| Directions & Worship Schedule | |||
| McKinney at Cardinal | 940.387.4355 | ||
Sunday8:30 am - Worship 9:45 am - Classes 11:00 am - Worship Wednesday 6:00 pm - Dinner (Menu) 7:00 pm - Classes |
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