From the Pastor 11-16-2020

 Since I have given up on social media for the time being, I will begin putting my weekly letter to my church members here on my blog. There might be times when the letter is more specific to the needs of our church so I will not always copy them here, but from time to time I will do so. 

From the Pastor:

 Acts 2:22-24
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”

This past Sunday morning I was privileged to be able to listen to Bro. Gerald Henderson preach to us from 1 Peter 2:1-8 on “Christ the Cornerstone.” It was a good and timely message for me to hear for many reasons, but mainly because it made consider the perfect work of Christ contained in His perfect person that works perfection in me to fit me for eternal glory with the perfect Holy Triune God. That’s an amazing thing to consider, is it not? Christ is the perfect cornerstone that aligns all of God’s chosen people to himself. No one else is even close to being able to do such a thing. Yet that is exactly what Christ does for us who are in him, his fellow brothers and sisters in the Father. This has led me to the verses that I have quoted above from Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost because it fixes our eyes on the significance of the glorious Gospel of God in Christ Jesus, the greatest blessing ever given to fallen man.

Yes, the Gospel is the greatest blessing we have ever received because it is the Good News that changes us from sinner to Saint. It’s the greatest blessing because it gives all other blessings their true value and significance from the very life that we have been gifted from our mother’s womb to the air that we breathe to the food that supplies us. The unnumbered blessings of God reach their greatest experienced worth only when we know and believe in the precious gift of Christ as our Savior and Lord. Only then can we begin to be truly thankful towards our Father in Heaven. Only then can all the other blessings that He so richly bestows upon us be properly appreciated and understood.

This is why we must continuously preach the Gospel to ourselves. Every day we must remind ourselves that Jesus Christ lived, died, rose from the dead, ascended, intercedes, and promises to return on behalf of all those the Father has given him. It was God’s love that compelled and delighted the Son in doing all that he did for us by fulfilling the Father’s amazing plan of redemption. And it is the Son’s continued and constant love for His Father that keeps us safe in His eternal plan and captivated by the Son’s love for us that flows from the Father. Christ’s atoning work was not accomplished in a vacuum, in some other dimension or space. No, it was accomplished here on this earth 2000 years ago in flesh and blood by the actual person of Jesus of Nazareth, the God-Man, sent by the Heavenly Father to redeem his children from all time. This plan had been orchestrated by the Holy Triune God from before the foundations of the world and continues on today through the preaching of this great and glorious news so that all for whom Christ died would come to saving faith. And make no bones about it, all who are in Christ Jesus will without a doubt come to the knowledge of their need for a Savior and call out to the only one who is able to save them to the uttermost, Jesus Christ.

As you consider what to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. I pray the first thing on your list is the salvation that has been granted to you by your Heavenly Father. I pray that as you pray over you family and with your family you would pray that they too would know of this great and precious gift. I pray that all of you would be able to delight in the blessings of God this season because you know of the greatest blessing that he ever gave this earth, the blessing of His Son the Savior of the World.