Some Responses to Last Week’s Devotional on Love…
From Dale Ghere :A friend sent me a letter today that included, “The nicest place to be is in someone’s thoughts, the safest place to be is in someone’s prayers, and the very best place to be is….WITH SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU AS YOU ARE….Dale
From Steve Dixon: Hi Pastor Jay, I was on my way home from work and this guy was tailgating me in traffic with no place for either of us to go. By the time we got to 9th street in South Laguna, as I was turning up to our home, he gives me the finger and yells a few choice words.
I immediately responded with the same gesture. I was so convicted of my actions, and as I was humbling myself before the Lord, I came across the verse in the KJV that says, “Love is not easily provoked.” Where was my love? Yet even with what I did, He still loves me! Phew! You are not alone my friend.
From Bill Devlin: You wrote that you have a long way to go to love, in not insisting on your own rights, not being touchy, and not taking account of a wrong done to you. I think what you said means that we see our Jesus, we see His unsurpassable beauty, and we just come up very short. Pitifully short. Paul said that as well, “I am the least of the apostles.” He had seen Jesus on the Damascus Road. And years later, as he saw Jesus more clearly still, he said, “I am the chief of sinners.” He said that, and look at His willingness to bear a cross at every turn.
From Rachel Snyder: I am not a “good” person. I “love much, because I have been forgiven much,” and that is the difference. So for me, the depth of my love is how much I have been forgiven by an unbelievably good God. The worse I am (my grasp on my own depravity), the bigger the grace, the bigger the forgiveness and therefore, my capacity to love. “Other” people become so much easier to love when I start measuring the difference between me and an Almighty, Holy Creator Messiah instead of the difference between me and my neighbor. (From an email in October)
Prayer Focus This Week…
- Peggy Hankwho is now on hospice in San Juan; she loves shorts visits; email me if you’d like to go
- Leo Griffin– start-up company
- Cary McKeown– blockage in colon; nagging infection
- Terry Sanders– pneumonia
- These also need healing: Eva, back; Everett, knee; Jake, heart; Ami, headaches, Jason,shingles; Gil, back; Dawn, cancer
- Camp Pondosummer excursion for junior highers next week
- Great to see the Coleman familyhere on Sunday; pray for complete healing for Brad’s neck
From Laurel Sternberg in Israel: Wanted to share something fun:
I just completed a four month course in basic spoken Arabic, held at a reform synagogue. For our final class, we were asked to give a monologue, subject and length our choice. Well, I thought, what an opening! So I wrote a brief testimony, along these lines, in Arabic:
“I was born in California. In the American culture, freedom and independence are important. To many people, independence became selfishness and freedom became a life without boundaries. I lived this life without boundaries. I hurt myself and others. Miraculously, God drew me to Himself. He showed me my sins and I hated them. He revealed Himself as a loving and forgiving God.
I buried my previous life in a water baptism of repentance. I received a new life in Yeshua ben David, the Messiah. Now I’m not a better person, I’m a new person. His Holy Spirit lives within me. I live to love and serve all people.”
They all applauded, then the teacher asked me to read it back, slowly, so they could catch every word!! These are reform Jews, included two ladies who are a family unit. One woman told me afterwards that it really moved her. May she be moved into the flock of the Good Shepherd.
Blessings from hot and sweaty Israel. Laurel
From Rhonda Ellis: Oh Pastor Jay. The quote you showed ( “Everything You Want is on the Other Side of Fear”) is hanging in the entry of my son and dil’s apartment. Just before my surgery last year I took a picture of it with my phone. Whenever the fear of that surgery would start to attack me I’d look at it. It became almost a mantra of sorts for me. Helped so so much. Thanks for the reminder. Rhonda
From Linda Kemp: Dear Pastor Jay, I thought of you and the prayer warriors in the Upper Room when I saw this video and heard this wonderful declaration of our who God is. Thinking of you all with love in Jesus’ Name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXGabOiNBsg&feature=youtu.be
May the Spirit of the Lord rest upon all of us this week.
Jay