Sunday Thoughts
Good Morning Everyone,
I am sorry we are not getting together today. I enjoy our weekly gatherings, and it has been such a blessing getting to know many of you over our past year gathering together. It was such a blessing to me to have our first baptisms, as a body of believers, last Sunday. I look forward to seeing how God will use the four young men who were baptized last week. Let's keep praying for them.
This week, let's think about Hebrews 13:14-15.
Right before this section, Paul is reminding us of things we need to do to show Godly love to others. He used the example of remembering prisoners and people who are mistreated. He is telling us, as representatives of Christ, to reach out to those groups of people and care for them. He stresses the importance of marriage, and how it should be celebrated and protected. He warns us not to be materialistic and money hungry. He tells us to pray for our spiritual leaders and not be lead into “diverse and strange teachings.” We do this through prayer for our leaders and for ourselves, and through the study of the Bible.
Then we come to verses 14-15
“For here w have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge to his name.” Hebrews 13:14-15
Notice how all of the things Paul warns us away from are common behavior of this world. Our world gives a counterfeit form of love to the marginalized groups in our country by leaving them in their failures and sin. We as believers must love these groups, but call them to repentance out of their sin to the Abundant Life Jesus Christ has provided for them. Our world mocks marriage with counterfeit marriages that are blasphemous and godless ceremonial of all kinds. We must only affirm the marriage that God has designed, because He is the one who designed it. The church has even been counterfeited in a consumer and emotions based institution. God's Church, His body, exists to evangelize and serve while growing in relationship to Jesus. That is the very definition of an Abundant Life in Christ.
This life is difficult. We need to always keep perspective of who we are in this world, what our duty to Christ is, and where we are ultimately headed. These verses in Hebrews reminds us that we are going to experience hard times. A follower of Jesus does not live a life of luxury and ease. We will be made to look like, at times even feel like, outcasts. We could be treated unfairly, ridiculed, and possibly even abused. However, we must remember, we are not home. We are seeking, waiting for, excited about that city that is to come. We are so excited about it that we are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes, to expand the Kingdom of God. This world is not headed in a good direction, and too many latch on to any ridiculous cause they can find. They do this, because God designed them for the greatest cause of all, the expansion of the Kingdom of God. Let's pray that this week, we introduce the living God to all of those we see in need of Jesus. When we are hurt, outcast, mistreated, let us remember we are not victims of some unfair system that needs to be fixed through earthly solutions. The only solution to all of the problems in this world is Jesus.
Romans 8:36-39
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This week, let's be more than conquerors for Christ remembering that we are not in our final home yet. Our enemy is not flesh and blood, we only know lost people who were like us before Jesus came into our life. Let us love them enough to pray for opportunities to share Jesus with them and call them out of their sin and into a new life with Jesus.
Have a great week, and I look forward to seeing you all next week,
Jeramy
Please be praying for:
A future location of our church
Sickness in our house
Our partnership with Fostering Families
We have many pesonal prayer request that I did not want to put on our public website. However, if you have shared something, know we are praying for you.
If you have anything we can pray for you and your family, please text or call to let us know
Announcements:
We are planning our second annual bowling party. More information to come soon
We are praying about a new location for our church. I will be calling places this week for information
We would like to provide Birthday boxes for foster children with Fostering Families. We are putting a “prototype” together. We will be showing you that soon to see if you want to participate in it.
When tragedy strikes
In February of this year tragedy struck our family when our 19 year old son suddenly collapsed and ended up passing away in the hospital 4 days later. Our family is obviously crushed. We are full of grief . Our son was a believer and knowing that he is in heaven gives us a hope and peace that is inexplainable. There are times that we are not sure how to move forward but God sustains us. We refuse to allow this tragedy change our mission and our calling to plant a church in rural Ohio. Our constant prayer right now is that God will use this tragedy for His glory. Will you pray for our family as we move forward? Pray that we keep our eyes on Christ and find the healing and comfort that only He can provide.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened- not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith not by sight. Yes we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
This is the passage Jeramy read at Timothy’s celebration of life. I pray it gives you the same hope and comfort it gives us.
Growing in Him
One thing we have come to learn is that when you fully surrender to God things start falling in place, doors are open and resources become available. All God asks of us is to show up. He does the work, He opens the doors, and He provides. When our attention shifted from - I don’t know about this - to - God show us your power - we had peace. Not only did we have peace but we saw God move. When we devoted our church planting plans to Him and saturated those plans in prayer, not only did we draw closer to God as individuals but we also saw Him working all of it together.
The verse we have been praying over the church plant is Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask and think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever Amen. When you fully embrace what that verse says and see that He is going to accomplish it AND it will be better than I could ask or think, WOW! I can’t do it, Jeramy can’t do it, it is through His power in us that it will be accomplished. The glory belongs to Him, after all, we aren’t doing it, He is. And one of the best parts of this verse- He is going to keep doing it through the church forever and ever. I don’t need to worry about the details. God has this figured out through all eternity and He will be glorified.
I don’t know how this journey is going to go (and for a girl who likes plans this is really hard) but I do know that God is in control, He loves me (I’m not sure why sometimes) and He will see us through the unknown. All glory belongs to Him.
There recently was a well known church planter that tragically and unexpectedly passed away. One of the things that has been said about him since his passing is that all the work he poured into church planting, all his passion, it was all an act of worship to Christ. Lord I pray that is true of me.
How our journey started
My name is Marie and my husband is Jeramy. we have been married for 20 years and have 5 wonderful boys. Sometime around the year 2008 Jeramy started to feel called to ministry. We were not sure what that looked like. Because of our young family, we thought that it was likely a calling that we would pursue when our kids were older. During this time of waiting, Jeramy was called to serve as a deacon, he led many different small group classes, and he was eventually called to be an elder. It was during his service as an elder that God placed many different people in our life that kept telling him he should pursue church planting. His initial reaction was no way- God would not call me to that. However, after affirmation from numerous people, and a lot of prayer, we finally surrendered to what God had been calling him to; church planting, The story definitely does not end here. There have already been a lot of ups and downs. It took us some time to fully embrace the calling and recognize where He wanted us to serve (I will share more of those details later). God has taught us so much through this journey already. We see Him moving in ways that we could never have imagined. Please join us in praying for the community God has called us to serve. We would love to hear from you and have you share your prayer requests with us. Thank you for praying for our family.
Want to know more about the organization we have partnered with? Click the link below
https://www.namb.net/send-network
Have any questions for us contact us @ ohioundantlifeinchrist@gmail.com