THE SABBATH

I love Sunday AND I love my life!!!

I am so thankful that God, in His wisdom, gave us the Sabbath. It truly is such a wonderful day in the life of a Christian as we "forsake not the assembling of ourselves together".

Our Pastor has been preaching the past several Sunday's about our Church being a Healing Place. Yesterday his message was HEALING FOR THOSE TRAVELING TOGETHER. He pointed out that our Christian walk is not a destination, we never "arrive" in this life, but a journey.....and a journey that we take together with others.

He pointed out that we are God's sheep, children, soldiers, body, citizens, ambassadors and bride. Then he pointed out that each of these belong to a larger group: sheep to flocks - children to a family - soldiers to an army - body having many different members - citizens of a country - ambassador to a kingdom - bride to a groom.

Then he pointed out that sometimes People Get Off Course - sheep get lost - children need to mature - soldiers receive wounds - our body becomes weak - citizens travel to a foreign land - ambassador misrepresents his country - bride is unfaithful.

The job of the church (that is EACH of us) is to Rescue - Recover - Restore. Rescue is to get to safety. Recover is accepting as part of the family of God. Restore is to make like new, as if no damage occurred.

Oh may we each endeavor to Rescue - Recover & Restore.

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We had been invited over to some new friends for a cook-out at 5 to celebrate her birthday which is actually today. They knew we attended the evening services and so we joined the other 4 couples, ate and ran.......and they invited us to come back after service for ice cream!!!
We had a guest speaker for the 6 o'clock evening service. Reza Safa, who was born and raised in Iran as a Muslim. He is a converted Christian who has a huge ministry preaching and reaching Muslim's for Christ. What a wonderful service that stirred our hearts.

We had invited our good friends of 31+ years, Don & Barbara, to come and hear Rev. Safa but hadn't heard back from them. When we got to church we were so happy to see their smiling faces waiting for us and getting to sit together through this informative service.

At 8:30 we were back at Don & Doris for ice cream and a wonderful visit. Don is a retired Assembly of God minister from California who recently moved to Coweta and are members of our church.

Meet our newest friends, Don & Doris.

Doris enjoying her birthday cone.

You can tell they are nutty and fun....just the kind of people we enjoy so much :o)

We are so grateful for this new relationship the Lord is developing with this wonderful couple. It all began months ago when we were sitting on a bench in Walmart prior to Mickey's heart surgery. They saw us sitting there and came up and said they recognized us from church. The 4 of us ended up doing our walk around Walmart together and then went into the coffee shop and sat and visited for a long time. Some people you just "hit it off with" right away and that is the way the 4 of us were.

I trust your Sabbath was as blessed as ours with a wonderful church body, wonderful services and surrounded with friendships. Most of all I pray you know JESUS as your personal Lord and Savior who makes all this possible. I cannot imagine life without HIM.