Announcements
Purpose-Driven
Life!--
This Monday
is Day 1! If you're joining us on this adventure to discover our
purpose and grow in discipleship, starting reading Day 1 this coming
Monday (May
5),
and then be sure to join us for worship on May 11 to explore and
review the previous week.
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 through
May 4.
Session
Meeting—May
4, 5:30-7:30.
Pray
For:
Norma
Capone
Peggy
& John L.
For
our session, meeting Sunday
For
our presbytery, meeting Tuesday
Links
10
Tips for Parents at a Soccer Game (Seriously, talk about a place
that needs some serious application of the love of Christ)
Keith's
Random Thoughts
I have a very special
gift. I have a mechanism in my brain that automatically shuts off
the listening device the instant anyone starts giving me directions.
I went to visit a church member at Alexian Village on Tuesday morning
and was given very simple 5-step instructions to reach her room.
After the nurse talked for a minute and concluded her directions, I
nodded, believing I had listened completely and had a firm grasp of
where I needed to go. The first step went flawlessly. Then, I
emerged from the elevator, and the next 30 minutes are a bit of a
blur. Let's just say that I finally made it.
This special gift has a
definite ability to hamper certain abilities—like, say, when I need
to figure out where I'm going. It's becoming somewhat frustrating,
particularly when paired with my male inclination not to ask for
directions in the first place. It's hard enough to ask once. Asking
twice seems crazy, especially when the odds of listening aren't much
higher. I don't try and ignore people... it just happens.
Remember when Paul, in
Romans 7, talks about not doing the good he wants to do and does the
very thing that he does not want to do? He's saying that we are
broken—we cannot do the basic good things that we know we are
supposed to do. We sin despite knowing that sin is wrong and not
wanting to sin.
What's the solution?
It's not to try harder.
That won't work. We haven't arrived at our current state by not
trying hard enough. We are fundamentally flawed.
Think of it this way.
When your car battery is dead, it doesn't matter how hard you turn
the key. It doesn't matter how long you let the starter try and
crank. (Well, it matters in that you may wreck your starter. But it
won't fix it.) When your car battery is dead, only an external
solution (new battery, jump start, etc.) will alter the situation.
Trying harder won't fix it.
In the same way, we need
an external solution. We need someone else to deliver us from our
wretched, sinful state. Since all humans share this sinful state, no
human is good or perfect enough to do so.
Only Christ can truly
deliver us. We who are sinful are ultimately dependent on an
external Savior to rescue us from the peril of sin.
Thanks be to God that
Christ both can and will deliver us from sin through his atoning
death on the cross.
Text
for this Sunday
(Click on Link below to read)
New
Hope on iTunes
Keith's
Blog
& Devotionals
for your Kindle
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