Announcements
Mark
Your Calendars--
On Wednesday, April 2 @ 6:45 we will have a representative from Jews
for Jesus to explain how the traditional Passover meal foreshadowed
Jesus' death & resurrection. If you're interested in helping
prepare for this event, please send me an email. We need someone
willing to host the representative on the night of April 2 and some
help preparing for the event.
Youth
Committee--
Meeting on March 18 @ 6:30
Devotionals--
If you're interested in having all of the New Testament daily
devotionals on your e-reader, they can be purchased on Amazon. Just
click here for 6 years worth of devotionals that cover the entire New
Testament.
Community
Kitchen Spot
There
are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community
needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please
bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them on the
bookshelf.
Plastic
Forks, Knives, Spoons
Dinner
Napkins
Heavy
Duty Sectional Dinner Plates
Dessert
Plates
New
Hope News
Sunday
School—Don
Kaller is going to be teaching the adult Sunday School class in March
& April.
Fruit
of the Spirit--
Sunday evenings @ 6:15
Pray
For:
Norma
Capone, Christine
Dyer
Peggy
& John L.
We
need to continue to pray for a cure to cancer, a beast that continue
to tear our families and society apart.
For
the kids in confirmation class: Ashley, R.J., Chase, Jade &
Jackson
Links
Keith's
Random Thoughts
Purim begins this
Saturday evening. It's the Jewish festival that celebrates the
deliverance of the Jews from wicked Haman. This deliverance is made
possible through the courage of Esther and the cunning of her cousin
Mordecai.
What is so appealing
about this little-read story (it's the only book in the Bible that
doesn't mention God) is that everything works out in the end. The
Jews, who had done nothing wrong, are saved. The heroes are
rewarded. Haman and his wicked friends are killed. It sets the
scene as a just world.
Many of today's movies
and books are like this. By the end, everything is set right. The
culprits are caught and punished, the heroes rewarded and lauded for
their efforts, and the victims are often compensated for their loss,
even if its nothing but a sense of satisfaction that justice has been
done.
We love these stories
because something within us is drawn to the neatness with which they
are concluded. The real world rarely resembles these fictional
tales.
In the real world, the
bad guys are sometimes caught, sometimes punished, unless they have
enough wealth and/or privilege to get around the system. Justice is
sometimes accomplished, except for when it is delayed or wrongly
delivered. Often, things go unsolved or unsettled. Heroes are
sometimes rewarded, unless they are pilloried. Situations get
complicated and messy and often stay that way for years and decades.
So it's nice to 'escape'
to fiction and enjoy a tale when things are set right. It's even
better to take confidence in God and trust that all things will
eventually end up that way. God promises that, in the end, justice
will be done. The martyrs who are crying out for justice in the book
of Revelation eventually see their murders avenged. The poor will no
longer be trampled upon. The hungry will eat their fill. Evil will
be destroyed.
In the end, all will be
set right. Let us trust in God, and in the meantime, may we work for
a more just world, joining with God's ongoing Kingdom work.
Text
for this Sunday
Acts
10
(Common
English Bible)
New
Hope on iTunes
Keith's
Blog
& Devotionals
for your Kindle
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