It’s All About Relationships…..

I pray regularly for God to make the harvest plentiful among us  … and that many people can come to know His great love and the freedom found living in His Grace and Forgiveness (and that He use me!)

I enjoy using the mini prayers written by Rev. Dr. Scott Rische (srische@citytm.org ) for City Transformation Ministries.

Use these this week.  If you want to receive them weekly, you can email Pastor Rische and he will include you in his distribution list.

“Pray to the Lord of the harvest…” Matthew 9:38

Here is the thought for this week:

 Three priorities from God’s Word that will endure the test of time:

The priority of building a deeper relationship with Jesus.

The priority of building stronger relationships with those who already know Jesus.

The priority of building personal relationships with those who need to know Jesus.

See Luke 6:12-19

Day One – Creator God, thank you for making me, and for making me for a relationship with you and others. Help me to live out those relationships as you as created and intended them to be lived.

Day Two – Restoring Jesus, thank you for giving your life so that through a relationship with you, our relationships with the Father and with one another could be restored!

Day Three – Guiding Spirit, since life is all about relationships, and since the Gospel flows through relationships with others, teach us how to build healthy and enduring relationships with others.

Day Four – Lion of Judah, because the Gospel flows through relationships, it is Satan’s desire to destroy our relationships and leave us relationally dysfunctional. And so protect us by your almighty power. Watch over and help us to guard our relationships.

Day Five – Harvest Lord, raise up more workers who are committed to building a deeper relationship with you, stronger relationships with one another, and personal relationship with those who do not know you.

Day Six – Prince of Peace, help me to be a worker that knows how to be a peace bearer, a peace maker, and peace keeper in all my relationships!

Day Seven – Holy Spirit, open doors and hearts to your Gospel – a Gospel that has at its heart – relationships. Let me be one who brings that Gospel.

Mother’s Day celebration.

What a great BIG TRUTH OF GOD shared on Sunday.  “Forgiveness changes people and sometimes it’s the only thing that changes people.”  I love our Fam Jam service and experience the big truth being illustrated in drama, activity, object, music and message.  It really comes alive…..and maybe even more importantly it “sticks”. The filling is not fleeting.

We also treated moms who came to Concordia to a fun impromptu family photo shoot out by the brightly colored play structure and one of our valuable volunteers is photoshopping the photos!  Sweet!  Our volunteer George has been restoring photos for Katrina victims for some time now….sometimes spending hours on adding individual lights to candles from a wedding portrait for example.  What a gift of love.

I am excited to see the result.

For me it was a lovely Mother’s Day. I was feeling a little under the weather but my kids surprised me with a great gift. They purchased a LivingSocial coupon for a photo at a local studio and took the photo today and brought home a beautiful portrait of themselves for me. I have been wanting this for a while now!  I think the last time I had one of them together was when Andres was a senior in high school.  What a great gift. It also was a nice treat to have my mom give me some TLC…..making sure I got chicken soup and keeping me company.  We had some extra time to chat and she shared some memories of her childhood with me that I hadn’t heard in such great detail. It was fascinating!  Time is such a precious thing to have with your loved ones.   It was a good day.