The Life Saving Station

Posted on July 26, 2015 by dkoop
God on Film RidgeOn a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was no more than a hut, and there was only one boat; but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. With no thought for themselves, they went out day and night, tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to be associated with the station and give their time, money, and effort to support the work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of these new members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those who were saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club’s decoration, and there was a memorial lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them were foreigners. The beautiful new club was in chaos. Immediately, the property committee hired someone to rig up a shower house outside the club, where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities because they felt they were unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. A small number of members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. The small group’s members were voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.

They did.

As the years went by, however, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old station. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.

Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the passengers drown.

  
As disciples of Jesus, our primary task is to go and make disciples. (See Matthew 28:19.)  To put it another way, we are to go and save lives. It was Jesus primary mission:  “I came to seek and the save the lost” and he made it our mission as well. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget our purpose. We need to recover our passion for lifesaving.  

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Source:  Youth Specialties, Hot Illustrations 1.0
Posted in God On Film | Leave a comment

I Tend Respond to Evil in One of Four Ways

Posted on July 21, 2015 by dkoop

God on Film Ridge It is natural to want to do something about evil that we encounter.  We all want to take some type of action.  

        The servants in the parable asked,   ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ (vs. 28b)   They were ready to suit up for battle!

 

 I can respond to evil in one of four ways.  I can be a …

  •  Separatist  – in Jesus day the Essenes

In the middle ages it was the monastic movement to start monasteries or nunneries to separate from society. You may have heard of this term because it described a movement in European Christianity and continues to this day.  We see this in movies like “Sound of Music” or “Sister Act.”  The Christian school movement, the home school movement, Christian colleges,  in many ways is Christians wanting to pull away from society. Separating themselves from the evil influences of the public school, from the evil influences of those evil school kids.  The only problem is that this is exactly OPPOSITE of what Jesus says we are to be.  “We are salt (Matt 5:13) we are light (Matt. 5: 14) we are a city on a hill. (Matt. 5:14) ”  They are putting our head in the sand like Ostriches is how I think of it.  “See no evil hear no evil.”  We have given up and decided we have no power, no influence.  When Jesus says we do.

  •  Puritan – in Jesus’ day the Pharisees

Trying to maintain a religious purity no matter the cost. You have heard of this term because it was another middle age and European Church movement that many still try to emulate today.  In Salem the Puritans burned suspected witches — to maintain a pure society. In the Spanish Inquisition people who disagreed with the official teaching of the church were tortured. Husbands have beaten their wives to teach them submission – so they could have model godly families.  Others have embraced such strong religious views that they cut off all ties with their children because they disagree with some of their lifestyle decisions.  We knew a family that their daughter didn’t marry a catholic so they disowned her and wouldn’t talk to her or their grandchildren for over ten years.  They got a divorce and they welcomed them back with open arms.  A friend of mine from college her dad, split a church over what translation of the Bible was the best and began a new church.  When she got married she married someone who didn’t share his views and the dad didn’t go to the wedding and now ten years later has not spoken to them.  Is this kind of behavior the answer?  NO!

Every time we try to use worldly influence, religion or power or scheming to get God’s work done we end up doing more damage to his kingdom.

  •  Militant – in Jesus’ day the Zealots

When the puritan methods aren’t working fast enough some Christians become militant.  We see the same thing in some contemporary political movements. “Once we organize and get rid of the hated godless pornographic homosexual media-driven infestation which is menacing our nation we’ll become the nation of God once again.”  Really?

And once people begin to think this way it’s not too much of a leap before they’ll take up arms against abortionists or homosexuals or whoever the current sinner happens to be. But hear Jesus, we’re stuck with weeds until harvest time.

  •  Realist

We’ve got to be realists! We are not going to eliminate evil from the world and we ought not to act as though that were the case.

Every group or individual that takes on themselves the mission of bringing in the kingdom of God in political or strong-armed or religious or rule infested ways ends up really warped with an inflated view of self-importance. Ironically, they begin acting in ways that are completely contrary to the kingdom of God.

            Which am I? 

 By the way these are also models of churches today.   Most churches in America today are a puritan model, they try to gather a pure church according to their definition of that with followers who follow their prescribed tenants.    We are realists.   Let me share with you our realist model.  We allow people to be in process.  There are wheat and weeds together.  Together we grow, we are not perfect we allow people to be who they are but we also provide opportunities for the wheat to grow.

The Ridge Fellowship is a group of Realists.

Those who want to grow, take advantage of the opportunities.    Those who want to be held accountable are held accountable by their decision only.  They decide to become a member, they decide to serve, they decide to lead.  We don’t hold those accountable who do not wish to.  Our mission is to KNOW Christ (its a choice each person must make on thier own) and   GROW to Be Like HIM (also a day by day minute by minute choice.)

MY RESPONSIBILITY

 Evil will not stop my spiritual growth

             Let both grow together until the harvest. (vs. 30a)

 As a believer, I am the good seed.  My responsibility is growth and reproduction.

 “The wheat sprouted and formed heads”  (vs. 26)

As wheat is profitable for bread, food, and seed, it has purpose. God’s children have purpose and are useful for God.  Is your life bearing fruit?  What are you doing in God’s field?   Are you spending your energy growing and reaching others?  Or are on some witch hunt or some gossip campaign or puritan endeavor or inquisition?   Try growing in Christ and reaching others.  It works!

There have been wonderful examples of those who have been changed when we thought they had no hope:   Alice Cooper, Korn guitarist, Brian Head Welch, Stephen Baldwin.
But the question asked by many is, “What happens to these evil people when they become good?”  The same thing that happens to you and me. They are forgiven and become new creation.

  • My greatest weapon against evil is transformation. 

 If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  2 Corinthians 5:17

God is in the business of transforming lives!  He changes us and recreates us.  He takes the evil and makes it good, the wrong and makes it righteous.

God can take this Johnson grass plant (a nasty weed) and transform it into a corn plant that is useful and provides food.  It’s not magic it’s a miracle! It’s a spiritual truth! God is in the life changing business.   He has called us to do the same.  We are to take every ounce of our energy and reach others with this truth.  Look at this.

 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

 He has given us the ministry of reconciliation (bringing people to Christ) not the ministry of grumbling, Ministry of complaining, or ministry of judging, the ministry of do nothing.

If you have never become a Christ follower, today is the day Christ can plant a seed in your heart, it will begin to grow and will transform your life.  If you are a believer let me ask you:  are you growing?  Are you seeing a change?  And lastly, whose life can you plant the seed of the gospel?  Which co-worker, family member can you give a bible to, invite to church or pray for?   This is how we best respond best to evil:  cooperating with the transformation power of Christ.

Darrell

www.RidgeFellowship.com 

Posted in God On Film | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Pixels – Under Attack

Posted on July 20, 2015 by dkoop

God on Film RidgeThe movie Pixel’s comes out Friday.  Here’s a brief description: When aliens intercept video feeds of classic arcade games and misinterpret them as a declaration of war, they attack Earth, using the games as models. Knowing that he must employ a similar strategy, President Will Cooper (Kevin James) recruits his childhood pal, former video-game champ and home-theater installer Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), to lead a team of old-school arcade players (Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad) and a military specialist (Michelle Monaghan) to save the planet.

While we may not be under attack from aliens using 80’s video game characters the bible says we are under attack from a spiritual enemy.  What do we do?   Like the president in the movie (Kevin James) that uses what many would consider a different strategy in dealing with the attack, in our scripture today Jesus lays out a different strategy in what to do when we are under attack.    It comes from a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13: 24-30

24 Jesus then told them this story:

The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a farmer scattered good seed in a field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and scattered weed seeds in the field and then left.

26 When the plants came up and began to ripen, the farmer’s servants could see the weeds. 27 The servants came and asked, “Sir, didn’t you scatter good seed in your field? Where did these weeds come from?”

28 “An enemy did this,” he replied.

His servants then asked, “Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?”

29 “No!” he answered. “You might also pull up the wheat. 30 Leave the weeds alone until harvest time. Then I’ll tell my workers to gather the weeds and tie them up and burn them. But I’ll have them store the wheat in my barn.”  Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Most of us are familiar with the problem of weeds: in your lawn or in your flower beds.

Even those of you who now have weeds taken care of by a grounds crew have still had to fight the problem of weeks, now your paying for it.  You may remember when you were a child and you had to pull the weeds in the garden.  I do.

And we’re still fighting those nasty weeds. They are a problem any time of the year.  Name the month and there will be a weed that is prevalent at that time.

That was pretty much the point that Jesus was making about the weeds in his parable.  In other words, we’re stuck with weeds until the harvest. And that’s the key point of not only Jesus’ parable but also this post. We’re stuck with weeds until harvest time.

Now, as I see it, this is information worth having. First of all, here is a word of encouragement to the perplexed and anguished.

George Barna wrote a book called,  “If Things Are So Good, Why Do I Feel So Bad? This is really one of those basic questions of life which has numerous variations – “If I’ve done all the right things why did my kids still turn out wrong?”

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“If I take care of my garden so well how come I keep getting weeds? If God is in charge, why do bad things happen?”

“If Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose victoriously over death – why do people still sin and die?”

“Why are there still grumpy people in the church?”

“Why are my neighbors inconsiderate when I go out of my way to be kind?”

“Why? Why? Why?”

QUESTIONS ABOUT OPPOSITION

 Who brings about opposition?

 “‘An enemy did this”  (vs. 28a)

Later when the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable he tell them clearly: “The enemy who sows them is the devil.” Matthew 13:39

“After a thousand volumes are written on the origin of evil, we know as much of it as Christ has told us here, ‘An enemy has done it, and this enemy is the devil.”  GEORGE BARNA

  • Why does God allow evil on earth?

 God created us with a free will.  Love allows choices.

God is a God of relationship and good relationships are built on choices and free will.  When I fell in love with my wife Niki I didn’t chain her to a wall and demand that she love me.  No, she has a choice to love me back or break my heart.  God is the same way, we cna love him back or break His heart.  Even at the dawn of creation, Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-3 we read that they had a choice of good and evil and were told not to eat from one tree.    All through the bible we are told to choose good, choose life, not death.     “Turn from evil and do good” Psalm 37:27

 Why doesn’t God remove all evil?

‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.” (vs. 29) 

Because the wheat and the weeds are almost indistinguishable, they look alike!
We are a mixture of wheat and weeds.   “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor classes, nor between political parties… but right through every human heart and through all human hearts” Alexander Solzhenitsyn

 If God started controlling things- we’d be the first to complain ‘hey, I thought you gave me free will!’  God comes back and starts wiping out murderers, rapists.. (fine by me!)… adulterers… ok, those who don’t handle anger rightly, who lust, or gossip,  woops! We all start sweating! None of us would stand a chance!

            If God removed evil I would have been gone a long time ago.           

“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  Psalm 51:5

Jesus is saying to us – “Hey, I don’t want you to be discouraged and to think that the dismal state of the world (or the church) is the final word. Don’t be troubled. You trust God now trust in me. I’m in charge – really I am. I may not be working this thing out the way you want it, in your preferred time frame. But my kingdom is coming into power. Its already up and functioning in some places – in the hearts and lives of some people. And on harvest day when I’m done implementing my plan all of the loose ends will be wrapped up. You won’t have to put up with this nonsense any longer.

 Jesus doesn’t want us to be discouraged but to be aware.

            The kingdom of heaven is like…(vs. 24)

Of course, this isn’t really a lesson in agricultural practice. It’s about the kingdom or reign or rule of God.

The Jewish people of Jesus’ day were anxiously awaiting the coming kingdom of God – that which the prophets had predicted – the time of the Messiah – the reestablishment of Jewish independence and power.

This, at least according to their thinking, would mean purifying the land of all foreign influences. And everyone was trying to figure out the best way to make this happen.

The Essenes were trying to bring the kingdom about by living purified lives out in the desert. If they could avoid all impurity they figured that they could become the pure starting point for a new Israel.  Have your heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls?  This group had a community near the dead sea and stored their scrolls in nearby caves which were discovered in the 1940’s.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, thought that they could bring in the kingdom with an organized and structured revival of Jewish practices.

The Zealots were trying to bring about the kingdom through revolutionary and guerillas tactics directed at the occupying Roman forces.

They were all pretty much shooting for the same thing – the coming of the kingdom of God or heaven.

So Jesus comes along and starts talking about the arrival of this kingdom – which got everyone all excited. “We’ll be freed from the Roman yoke. Once again Israel will be the light on a hill.”

But leave it to Jesus to throw a monkey wrench into their plan or perception. He tells them; indeed the kingdom is coming into power but not exactly in the way that you’re expecting. We’re going to be stuck with a few weeds for a while.  We will have evil and opposition all around.  Count on it!  Like them we can respond to evil in an inappropriate way.

In the next post, we’ll look at the four ways we tend to respond to evil.  Which one is your natural tendency?

Darrell

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Posted in God On Film | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Humility in Four Key Areas (Part 2)

Posted on July 18, 2015 by dkoop

God on Film RidgeThe next area that we need to learn humility is in our desire to compare ourselves to others.

3.   Humilty and Comparison. 

We often look at the people around us and think, “How do compare to them?  At least I do, “How is my house, my job, my kids, my life compared to others?'” Nothing will kill your joy like competition and comparison.  Jesus saw this going on and he teaches his disciples (and now us) a lesson in humility.   He was at this dinner party and He sees the head table.  They usually sit in a U shape with a head table up in front and a chair that would be next to the guest of honor.  If you wanted to be greatest at the party you’d be sitting in this chair.  That’s where you’d be.  As the “U” went around and went down toward the end there would also be a seat.  If you were sitting down there you were the least at the party.  So people when they walk in, what do they do?  They’re milling around up near the place of honor.  “I’m better than he, and smarter than he is…  I deserve that spot.”  So they’re hanging around close to that spot, like musical chairs.

So He said to them, in Luke 14:10-11 “When you’re invited, take the lowest place so that when the host comes he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  So here’s the test.  A lesson in greatness.  Jesus said, Exalt yourself – that’s getting the upper hand, take the top spot.  Or humble yourself – take the lowest spot.

The amazing thing to me is that Jesus didn’t just say, “Be satisfied with the lowest seat.”  Notice what He said.  He said take the lowest place.  Not just be satisfied if you get stuck there and say it’s ok.  He says take the lowest place.  For me, I’d be more than happy to take the lowest place, to sit in that spot if I knew that someone was going to come and tap me on the shoulder and say, “Come on up here and sit in the highest spot.”  I’d be glad to take the lowest place every time.  But what if I take the lowest place and I get stuck there.  And I see somebody sitting up there who I know is a lot worse off than I am.  What in the world am I doing down here and they’re up there?  How did that work out?

In our maturity, as we grow in this area of comparing and competing with one another, there are some steps that we all go through.

Step one is striving for what we perceive is the top place.  “I’m milling around with the top dogs, the movers and shakers.  Who’s popular, that’s where I’m going to be!  I’m at the top because that’s where I want to be because that’s what’s going to make me feel important.

Step two in this growth to humility in my life is I take the lowest place.  I’ll talk to that person who is not as popular but hoping that it’s going to get me to the to the top.  I’ll do some things I don’t want to do hoping someone will see and I’ll get a raise or promotion!  Maybe it’s just my way to the top spot.

Step three, being equally comfortable in the lowest place or the top place  Because it doesn’t really matter.  It doesn’t really matter who we think is first.  Step three is realizing if I’m here, God may just want to be here.  There may be somebody sitting next to me that I can talk to that I wouldn’t be talking to if I were not there.  There maybe somebody that I’m sitting next to who’ll talk to me, that can impact my life, make a difference in my life.  I may not have to be such a phony if I’m at this place.  I may be able to be more myself.  God can use me at the place I’m at.

Equally satisfied wherever God happens to put me.  I’m not there yet.  I don’t know about you but I’m not there yet.  But I hope to get there.  I want to be there.  I want to live that kind of a life.  I don’t want to live my life so concerned about comparing and competing that it eats up my life.

Greatness is not a matter of winning a competition.  That’s what Jesus taught about it.  It’s a matter of living the life that God gave you to live.  And your life is unique.  No one else can live your life.  Jesus is a lot more concerned about how you’re helping other people run the race of life than whether you’re ahead of other people in the race of life.

Philippians 2:3 says “Be humble and consider others more important than yourself.”  That’s upside down.  That’s not the way most of us think – consider other people more important that ourselves?

Take the lowest place.  What does that mean in every day life?  It means this: don’t waste one more minute of your life worrying about who’s first, who’s more important, who has more.  It’s a waste of time.  Don’t waste another second of your life worrying about that.

Because competition, and we are really into competition especially in America.  In the end all this competition it doesn’t matter.  Your favorite sports team.  The one you live and die with, whether they’re on a winning streak or losing streak.  In the end it doesn’t matter.

The big business deal you just made.  You beat everybody else out.  You know you did it.  You have that feeling of that.  In the end it doesn’t matter.

Or this feeling of, “My kids are better than your kids.”  In the end it doesn’t matter.

Why? Because in the end God is first, he’s best.  And in the end we’re all going to love that because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Those of you who live for competition. If you’re wired for competition, God wired you that way.  I’m not telling you deny the way you were made.  If you’re wired for competition, be competitive.  But be competitive about something different than you’re competitive about right now.  Be competitive about something different than you being first.  Because in the end that’s a pretty small goal.

God wired you to be competitive, be competitive about feeding people who are starving.  Be competitive about leading people to Christ, giving larger sums of your income and time away. That’s a goal worth of that wiring that God gave you.

If you’re wired to be competitive, be competitive about taking the good news that Jesus Christ loves us to places in the world that no one else would take it to.

If God wired you to be competitive, be competitive about being the best husband, the best wife, the best mom, the best dad you can possibly be.

God gave you that wiring but He didn’t give it to you just so you could use it so you could use it selfishly.  He gave it to you and me so that we could be competitive about things that are truly important.

Use the way God made you, enjoy the way God made you, to fulfill His purposes for your life.  Instead of comparing and deciding what seat am I sitting in, just wipe all that out and say, “God, whatever seat You put me in, I’m going to, in that seat, do something that makes a difference for your sake in the world today.”  That’s Jesus’ path to greatness.

Jesus taught us a fourth key area where we need humily.

  1. Humility and Our relationship with God

Jesus told the story at the dinner party.  He starts out, in Luke 18:10, Two men went to the temple to pray.  It’s like, “Did you hear about the two guys that went into a bar (an Aggie and a Longhorn) .  He has their attention now.  And He tells this story.  But it’s not a joke.  He tells this story about two men – a proud Pharisee and a sinful tax collector.  We may not like tax gathers today because they gather our taxes.  But in that day they hated tax collectors because there was nothing good about them.  These guys not only gathered their taxes, they stole from people extra money to make themselves rich when they gathered taxes.  They served the Roman government, the hated government in order to gather taxes.  They were totally hated.  So Jesus says these two guys come in.  The Pharisee…  Yeah!  The tax collector…  Boo!  They both pray a prayer.  The Pharisee prays, “God, thank You for all the good things you’ve given me.  Thank You that I’m not like other guys, especially that tax collector over there.  Thank You, thank You, thank You for me, me, me.”  Then Jesus says the tax collector prayed.  He wouldn’t even look up to heaven.  He bowed his head and beat his chest and he prayed, “God, be merciful to me!  I’m a sinner.”

He asked the crowd, “Which of those guys prayed a prayer that was heard by God?”  Here’s the punch line.  The Bible says in Luke 18:14 Jesus said, “When the two men went home it was the tax collector not the Pharisee who was pleasing to God.”

If you put yourself above others, you’ll be put down.  But if you humble yourself, you will be honored.  Here’s the greatness test when it comes to our relationship with God.  When you exalt yourself, that’s a decision to do it yourself, “I’m going to make this relationship with God work on my own energy, my own strength, my own good works.  I’ll do it myself.”  But the decision to humble yourself is a decision to trust God.  Do it yourself or trust God.  Do it yourself religion is all on your shoulders.  It’s all what you have to do.  In the end all you have is what this Pharisee had – “Thank You, God, that I’m better than so and so.”  It’s not much.  That’s all you get.  In this prayer, one guy prayed “Look at me!”  The other guy prayed, “Forgive me.”  One guy prayed “I have God’s blessing.”  The other guy prayed, “I need God’s mercy.”

 

Let me ask you a question.  As you grow in faith, as you get to know Christ better and better, what should be happening in your life?  How should you grow?  There should always be a huge part of you that feels– “I need God’s mercy.  I need His mercy every day of my life.  There’s not a day of my life that I don’t need God’s forgiveness, for sins that I know I committed and a bunch of them I’m not even aware of because I’m an imperfect human being.  I need God’s mercy.”  If you want to live a great life, never get over that.

The apostle Paul certainly lived a great life.  Look at the lives that he impacted.  Even at the end of his life he was still saying, I’m the chief of sinners.  I’m the greatest sinner that I know.  Never get over God’s mercy in your life.  That’s one of the secrets to greatness.

So Jesus says do you want to be great, be aware of how much God loves you and how much mercy He has for you.  Make a decision to trust Him.  1 Peter 5:5-6 “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time.”  That’s trust.  Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

Humility is not putting myself down.  It’s lifting God up.  Humility is being honest about who I am, my strengths and weaknesses.  And humility is being honest about who God is, His strengths, His goodness, and what He can do in our life.  That’s what humility really is.

Jesus talked about what this kind of trust in God should do in our lives in Matthew 11:29 when He said “Take My yoke [My plan, My direction, My leadership] …Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me.  For I am gentle and humble in heart [Jesus was humble] and you’ll find rest for your souls.” 

 Do it yourself or trust God.  Jesus said if you’re doing this the right way, trying to get to know God, trying to get closer to Him, you’ll find rest for your souls.  If you’re trying to get closer to God and it’s making you feel more and more burdened, more and more pressures on your life trying to get closer to God, something is wrong.  It’s not meant to work that way.  Jesus said as you get closer to God, you’re supposed to find rest for your souls.  Are you doing it yourself?  Or are you trusting Him?

 

Let me pray for us…

Father, we do want to trust You.  You know us.  It’s hard for us to be humble.  We get caught up in ourselves so easily.  But I pray that these words of Jesus would be an encouragement to us, would be a strength to us, would help us to see that God You can do something in our lives we can never do on our own.  God, this next week we do pray that you’d help us to give our ambitions to You.  We do pray that You help us notice the needs of those around us.  We pray God that this next week you help us honor You with whatever seat we happen to be sitting in as we trust You, as we live in Your rest.  We ask this in Your name, Jesus, Amen.

Darrell

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Next time we’ll look at the movie Pixel’s and talk about what to do when we’re under attack.

 

Posted in God On Film | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment