Activities for Saturday 2/27/10

Digging our of the snow and preparing our hearts for worship tomorrow morning.

Please do your shopping today so that we can keep our Sabbath holy.

Pastor's Reflection for the day

God's omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence mean that He is both deep within us and far beyond us. We can limit the actions of God in our life by seeking and acknowledging only those aspects of God that are within ourselves -- the things that we can see, touch, smell, taste, hear, and comprehend. When we perceive God only in terms of our life on earth and discoveries of the universe we have been able to explore through science, we confine God's omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence to the capacities of humankind. But God is far greater. In faith and in prayer, we can avail ourselves of the Divine reality that lies beyond self, and become open to experiencing the infinite potential of God. Speaking to God in prayer can be an opportunity to reach out for what appears to be miraculous in our human understanding.

Pastor's Reflection for the day

Our faith in God is limited only by the size of the box in which we perceive Him. If we understand God in the box of our intellect, the power of God is confined to those things that we can deduce from our human experience. If we place God in the box of our physical world, our perception of God is limited to information gleaned from our five human senses. If, on the other hand, we understand God to exist inside and outside the confines of our human intellect and sensory perceptions, the reality of God will enlighten us into an unlimited faith wherein moving beyond self becomes an exciting opportunity to attain life, light, and love that exceeds anything we could possibly experience in any other way. When we are blessed by God with this kind of faith, we are compelled to share these gifts of the Holy Spirit as soon as we receive them.

Activities for Friday 2/26/10

Because of the snow:

Youth Lasagna Dinner - CANCELED

Lenten Bible Study - CANCELED

Activities for Thusday 2/25/10

Stay safe

Be blessed

Be a blessing

Pastor's Reflection for the day

The Gospel of Jesus Christ asks that we become like broken bread and poured out wine, becoming like the body and blood of Christ. The Gospel tells us that our movement beyond self and into brokenness is needed to decrease our rebellion against God’s divine plan, and thus become strong representatives of the Heavenly Kingdom in the world. These are easy words to say, and an ideal that many Christians would agree expresses an objective in their heart. Yet there is a counter-language in the Gospel to which we also aspire that calls us to be healed and made whole; a language that beseeches God to make us strong so that we will be able to defeat powers that strive to pull us away from our obedience to God’s will. It requires a strong faith in the unconditional love of God to bring these two points of view into a common purpose -- to be broken and poured out so that God can prevail, and also remain strong in our resolve to not yield to the temptations of the world. Paul makes the resolution of these seemingly contradictory desires most clear in 2 Corinthians 12:10 when he states, “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” The Gospel teaches us that in being broken, (moving beyond self), we are made strong for the purpose of God.

Pastor's Reflection for the day

The amount of freedom in our spiritual self largely depends on our willingness to surrender freedom in our physical life. Freedom in our spiritual self is attained as we permit the power of God to reign supreme in our heart, mind, and soul in such a way as to guide every action and deed in which our physical being participates. When we are free in our spiritual self, our entire physical life is surrendered to the purpose of God. The freedom, peace and comfort that comes from this surrender increases proportional to the liberation of our spiritual self from all desires of our physical life to exercise our own free will except to be obedient to God. The dichotomy here is that as we surrender the freedom of our physical life, freedom in our spiritual self grows exponentially. To see the truth of this dichotomy expressed in its purest form -- look at the freedom attained for all humankind on the cross.

Activities for Wednesday 2/24/10

12 noon - Ecumenical Lenten Lunch at St. Luke's UMC in Long Branch

6:45 PM - Prayer Circle in the Prayer Room

7:30 - A meeting of the Nurture, Outreach, and Worship (NOW) committees in the chapel

Greetings

The purpose of this blog is to keep members and interested people up to date on activities at Old First UMC, and to provide an online space to share thoughts and ideas.