Blessings to you, loved ones.  Here’s your belated weekly update.

Last Sunday feels like a long time ago.  I can hardly remember what happened after a long work week.  Due to a big project I have been at the office spending long days.  I’m glad I don’t usually have to do that because not much else got done this week including the usual Wednesday or Thursday post to keep you all informed.

What I do remember is that we had most of our folks back and it always blesses my heart when you’re there.  Even Kelly made it back to us.  I really appreciated Linda’s Sunday school lesson and hope everyone got the message that God cares for you and also that you never know what a wise word at the right time may do.  Trust in God, give Him the glory, and you may have an impact far greater than you might imagine.

I wrapped up our exploration of some of Jesus’ healing miracles and the greater purposes behind them.  We examined how He responded to the challenge of the Pharisees after he had healed a man born blind.  Using the analogy of a shepherd and his sheep, he described Himself as the good shepherd, explaining in a familiar way who He is and what He came to do.

It was also our first live video on Facebook on our page.  I did one the week before but didn’t think to do it from our page instead of my personal profile.  We want you to come and join us, but if you can’t, we will try to keep this up and maybe expand to more of the service as we are able.  It’s not exactly a professional job, just my phone stuck on a goose-neck mount I happened to have and pointed at the front, but it allows us to extend our reach to anyone who can use Facebook.

Tomorrow I want to talk about forgiveness.  I know it probably hasn’t been all that long since we did that, but the subject is so critical to the understanding of the Christian life and our relationship to God that I want to go back to it again.  Forgiveness is not easy.  Sometimes it is really hard.  It seems unnatural to us.  Why should someone who has wronged us be allowed to get away with it?  I’ll tell you why.  Because we have been forgiven by God, and our debt is far greater than we could ever repay.  If we cannot learn to forgive, we have missed the heart of God.  We can’t relate to Him at all.  That is why Jesus makes this statement in Matthew 6:14-15, ¹⁴ “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”  Please join us!

Keep praying for each other.  There is not one of us that isn’t going through something and we are meant to pray for and support each other.  I think we mentioned last week that Annette F was scheduled for heart surgery.  She had it on Thursday.  I have not had a chance to find out how it went.  Lisa was also supposed to find out what the next step in her treatment will be.  Keep praying for Tim’s recovery and for the Whitmores.

I love you all and look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Larry