Blessings to you, loved ones.  Are you ready for the big freeze?  I confess that after what happened at my house last year I’m a little nervous, but I trust in the Lord and everything will be fine.  At this time there are no plans to cancel or go virtual for church on Sunday.  It will be chilly, but the roads should have cleared.  We will inform you if that changes.

I hope those of you who were able to be there on Sunday enjoyed it as much as I did.  I would like to continue doing the communion ceremony with our meals like that.  I wish the whole message had been recorded.  It seems that when my phone puts up the low battery prompt the sound cuts off and doesn’t come back.  On top of that my digital recorder also flaked out for some reason so we don’t have anything.  I ordered a new phone, so hopefully that will not happen again.  There are better ways to capture the service.  We’ll get there in His time.

This Sunday we’ll pick up with our study of Jesus’ references to the kingdom of Heaven.  A couple of weeks ago we covered the parable of the ten virgins at the beginning of Matthew 25.  Jesus is still speaking when we come to the well-known parable of the talents starting in verse 14.  He continues to expand the themes of readiness and diligence, and He reinforces the “long time” before the master comes.  When he gives a similar parable recorded by Luke (Ch. 19)  we are told it is in response to those who thought the Kingdom was to be established in an earthly sense immediately.  A few years back we looked at the parable in Luke.  This week we will focus on the one in Matthew, which has some differences but a similar message.

Keep lifting each other up this week, and I will see you Sunday!

Love y’all,

Larry