SCRIPTURE: John 3:1-17
TEXT:5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit THEME: Worship away from the temple with a spirited faith in us. INTRODUCTION As John writes the Gospel named after himself, he is not making a strict chronological account, (we have three other gospels to gives us this timeline of events). What John writes about Jesus, is thematic. He begins with a cosmic account of the Incarnation of the Word. Next we are introduced to the forerunner, prophet, John the Baptist. He identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God, whose blood marks the door post of our households, to signal Death to Passover. In Chapter Two Jesus clears the Temple of money changers, setting the tone for a new kind of worship, away from the sin and sacrifice economy that organized religion had created. This sets the stage for what’s coming next, a night time conversation between two Rabbis about the transformative work of the Spirit, moving us away from ritual religion and into a spiritual relationship with God. SCRIPTURE Nicodemus and Jesus have a conversation in a traditional rabbinic fashion with plays on words, talking about physical and spiritual things. Nicodemus plays dumb or devil’s advocate in bringing up absurd objections to what Jesus is saying, so in this way, he can get further clarification from Jesus. They spar around the analogy of birth and rebirth, or transformative change, initiated by God’s Spirit in us. In a world where we are striving for self-sufficiency, Jesus is proposing a God who want us to be dependent, a God who wants to involved intimately with us, and who wants us to call for help. This is very different from a religious faith that is trying to keep within God’s Laws. Jesus reveals a gracious God who does not see us as a woeful mistake that God needs to fix, but a joyful child who God welcomes into fellowship. Embryonic Water and animating Spirit are entry points into this fellowship with God. Right now the Israelites are living with God as a tyrant, policing to punish anytime they break the Law. But Jesus portrays a loving God, who provides path ways of healing and restoration even when our misery is our own fault. We suffer trying to live within the confines of the Law of God, where we can instead be in relationship with God, living the law of love with each other. Jesus brings a paradigm shift, a new way of understanding who God is and who we are. Using the system of Love to define our reality with God, instead of the Law. (This is starting to feel liberating) There is a shift where we are not obsessing about being good enough for eternal life, towards having an assurance of enjoying an eternal relationship with God and each other. This is liberating, freeing, as it takes us off of the cycle of sin and sacrifice, sin and forgiveness, and debt and payment, to being imaginative in our relationship with God to create in our world. Jesus is moving the worship of God away from temple sacrifices into embracing God’s truth in our hearts by being in fellowship with God. The Spirit of God in us makes Change possible, transformation possible, and a shift to understand God as loving possible. Jesus is casting a vision of grace, love, forgiveness, promises, joy, and liberty. We don’t need to be self-sufficient, but dependent upon God who loves us. When Israel was wandering in the desert and serpents entered their camp, biting and killing them, God intervened. God had Moses carve out a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a stick with instructions and a promise, ”Lift your eyes upon it and live.” This is nuts, off the wall, craziness, when faith seems like silliness, where trust exhibited in faith, takes hold of promises and acts, is where we can be born again with a Spirited Faith. APPLICATION The church exemplifies the love of God in community. Within the world we live in, we balance our lives with this Spirited Faith. Our relationship with God sees us as good and the power of God as transformative. Where does the Spirit want us to be ‘born again’? There is an economic theory, that if rich people are made richer, then poorer people will benefit, as their wealth trickles down. This sounds plausible as there are example of philanthropist who do tremendous work with the poor, outcast, education and the prevention of malaria, but this does not work unless people are driven by a moral compass, a Spirited Faith. So if the 1% control a majority share of the wealth, but an even smaller percentage of them lack a Spirited Faith, then most of the wealth, sadly is kept for themselves and only makes them richer with no benefit to the middle class or the poor. We can’t imagine this amount of wealth, except for stories we hear in the housing market, where home for sale, are being bought in paradise for hundreds of thousand of dollars over the asking price, and upon purchase, they are torn down for a new houses to be built. This is happening in Honolulu where 90% of the available land is already being utilized for housing, and is being bought by others, who have come from elsewhere during the pandemic, to work here from home and have decided to stay. Local people are priced out of the Housing Market. This is what happens when the Spirit is lacking. New partnerships of collaboration need to be formed to pool the resources of money, land, time and talent in order to be stewards of our community. Josh Hayashi tells us that what we are doing with the Wailuku Mission Housing is unique, as we are forming a partnership with the State, County, Churches, Community, and Neighbors, so that those born and raised here have a chance to raise their families where they grew up. This is based on our Spirited Faith in God. I have a whole list of things the Spirit is prodding us to be born from and be reborn into, but I don’t have time to elaborate on them. So I’ll leave you with my list; to be born from flesh to Spirit, from racism to humanity, from bias to appreciation, from hate to understanding, from fear to peace, from money to relationships, from manipulation to collaboration, from power to love, from insecurity to confidence, addition to coping skills, abuse to respect, poverty to contentment, from hunger to satisfied, from tradition to meaning, from apathy to empathy, and from selfishness to community. CONCLUSION The transformative work of the Spirit, moves us away from ritual religion, into a Spirited Faith in relationship with God and each other. God’s Spirit with us makes transformation and change possible in us and in our world. Our Worship can be more than just an absolution of guilt, but a liberation from bondage and Spirited Faith formations of loving communities, neighborhoods, partnerships, collaborations and ministries.
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SCRIPTURE: John15:26-27, 16:4b-15
TEXT: 8And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: THEME: INTRODUCTION The Maui News reported that there will be no County Fair this year for a second time, because of COVID-19. They showed a picture of a smiling boy on an E.K. Fernandez ride, taken a couple of years ago. There is sense of grief, loss and relief. Feeling this way is normal as we hang on to the past, grieve what we have lost, and move into something new. COVID-19 has accelerated changes in the life of the church. We were dragging our feet with our WEB page and we just started with Facebook sermons when the Pandemic hit. Then we began using the WEB page more and Facebook Live to share our entire worship service. Jesus has told his disciples about his departure, but they have dragged their feet to this reality. Employing a local tactic, “bum by go away”. Maybe if they just ignored the possibility of Jesus leaving, he might not go and they would have him forever. Jesus sees through their guise and gives them ‘The Talk’ to accelerate their preparation for his leaving and the coming of the Spirit. SCRIPTURE Taking Jesus away from us, what is God thinking? God as Creator seems to reside in heaven. This facet of God can seem distant, unavailable, and detached from us. God in Jesus is a breath of fresh air. Dwelling among us, teaching, healing, casting out demons, ministering to the marginalized and forgiving sin. God incarnate is present, although limited, being only at one place at a time. The incarnation as a way for God to reveal God’s self to us is genius, but can you imagine an old Jesus? Fully divine and fully senior citizen? Loss of muscle mass, arthritis, maybe even with cancer or dementia. And certainly not a never aging Jesus like Dorian Grey. That would be creepy. So, Jesus talks to the disciples and tells them that he must go, so the Advocate can come, God version 3.1.2.3 Spirit. The Advocate will enable them to testify to Jesus, prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment, and guide them into the truth, just as Jesus has done, The Spirit will glorify Jesus as the spirit will take what is Jesus’ and declare it to the disciples. Follow this chain; all that the Creator has is Jesus’, The Spirit takes what Jesus has and declares it to the disciples, then this is what we receive from the Disciples. This passage is a transitional piece as the disciples grieve Jesus’ departure. There is disbelief, sorrow, loss and a deep sense of anticipatory anxiety, couple with words of promise, truth and an accelerated movement into something new. If anything, this ‘talk’ is a heads up to something they are unable to control, so don’t be surprised when it happens, keep up with the changes. From Creator God, to God Incarnate. From Jesus to the Advocate God, or Spirit. God is invisible and present in another way, not confined to a human body, but being able to be with everyone, and everywhere all of the same time. The Spirit guides us in the way of Jesus to participate in God’s activities. APPLICATION How do we transition from God incarnate in Jesus, our buddy, Savior and friend, to the Advocate, God the Spirit? This reminds me of the two ways to remove a band aid. You can slowly work at the edges and gently lift it off, making it hurt a little at a time for a long time. Or you can just rip it off, all at once and make it hurt like anything for a little while. Jesus has been trying the gentle approach without success, so now he is ripping the band aid off. There is sorrow at Jesus’ leaving but something new is coming with the Advocate. The Advocate will move us away from the Sin sacrifice cycle, and confirm in us that sin is not a deal breaker in our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit is a gift of grace just as Righteousness is. Try as we might, we cannot earn the Holy Spirit or achieve righteousness with God by what we do. It is a result of God loving us. And although our actions have consequences, and our actions can be judged as good or bad, right or wrong, God does not condemn us, but offers forgiveness, so that we can be forgiven and engage in the work of reconciliation. The Spirit’s work in us is liberating, empowering and reconciling. As Jesus revealed the love of God among us, so now, with the Spirit’s help, the gathered church can make God visible to our neighborhood. The actions of the church are an incarnation of God. The Wailuku Mission Housing is a Brick-and-Mortar incarnation of the love of God to our neighbors. It is a physical expression of; our faith in God, of our following in God’s way, and of what it means to be stewards of God’s gifts, property, resources, people, time and as an example to other churches of what could be possible for them if that take what they believe about God and follow the call of the Spirit to action. The work of the Spirit in us makes God visible to the world. CONCLUSION Sometimes, for us to expand our imaginations of God, we have to give God three personas; Parent/Creator, Incarnate child/Jesus, and Spirit/Advocate. They all display different facets of the same God. They are all one and the same, active and present all at the same time, just as how we could be understood in three different ways as Child, Parent and spouse, they all reveal three realities and perspectives about who we are, different, present, but true all at the same time. Jesus leaves, but not really, this is God expanding our minds to launch us to be the church, God incarnate, in the life, actions and work of the church. More than just a building, but organic, risking our sanctuary to be the body of Christ to our neighbors. That says a lot about the love of God that is real. Last year when they canceled the County Fair, we applied and were awarded a PPP Loan that miraculously covered the loss of income from the fair. This year before the Fair was canceled, we applied and was awarded another PPP loan. Thank you, Jaime, for your hard work on this. We also receive word from the bank that our first PPP Loan has been forgiven. Thank you to Jaime again for following this up. This is one ‘Bum Bye Go Away’ tactic that actually worked. But with All that God is doing for us, and through us, through Jesus and the Spirit, as we come back, gathering for worship and on Facebook, having the choir sing again, we grieve what we have lost, as we move into the something new God is doing, as we transition to the something, new the Spirit continues to propel us towards. SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:9-13
TEXT: 10bThose who do not believe in God have made him a liar THEME: Our faith is informed by God’s testimony of Jesus. INTRODUCTION This passage is about the incarnation of Christ. We cannot read this passage without the preceding verse which talk about belief in Jesus as the Christ, Born of God, love and conquering the world. We used Nicodemus’s story of being born again as way to illustrate those passages. Today we are using Jesus’ meeting of Samaritan woman at the well to open up the second part of this passage. SCRIPTURE Jesus waits at the well, while the disciples go into town for food. He waits to see if someone would come to draw him a cup of water from the well. A Samaritan woman arrives. She is sassy in her surprise, as Jesus’ thirst would cross cultural lines of an ancient prejudice between Samaritans and Jews. She testifies about what she knows about God from her ancestors. But Jesus testifies to a greater truth, to worship in spirit and to live life. The testimony of the Samaritan woman was good, but the testimony of Jesus was greater. What she had been taught, what she practiced, and what she believed, was enough for her to believe in even greater things, concerning the Son, God’s Gift and life eternal. If we receive human testimony, the God’s testimony is greater. God testifies that Jesus is his son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe, call God a liar. God gives us eternal life, God’s Son, Jesus, lives this, teaches this, embodies this. Testifies to this. Whoever has the Son has life. The incarnation of God in Jesus, is God’s way of testifying. APPLICATION Our faith is confirmed with God’s testimony of Jesus. How are our experiences of faith informed by God and become a testimony to eternal life? We read an article for the CTEL (Certificate of Theological Education for Leadership) Preaching class from PSR (Pacific School of Religion) entitled, “Asking the Beautiful Questions” It described a Bible study that was held in a Central American prison, for the women of gang members were also incarcerated there. They looked at the story of Hagar, from Genesis 16, Sarah’s slave, who Abraham sired his first-born Ishmael with. This is not Sara’s finest moment as she asks Abraham to dismiss her handmaiden and her son. These women identified with Hagar when the angel appears and calls her by name, and asks her the Beautiful Question, “Where have you come from and where are you going?” This empowered Hagar to tell her story. Hagar incarnated their story of being un-named, used as property, never bothered to asked about their stories, living in a desert of loneliness, rejected and marginalized. In Hagar these women found their story. Then when Hagar renames God, “El Roi” the God who sees me, they also had a God who saw them. The Scriptures became alive for them. The words of God intersected their lives and told their stories. This was an incarnational moment when the word of God became real in their lives. This is like Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. This is the testimony of our experience, when God’s testimony of Jesus breaks into our world. Lina Thompson, our Preaching professor for CTEL did a preaching series on the beautiful questions that Jesus asks. On all of those places in the gospel where Jesus intersects our lives and asks for our story to be told as an entrance way for the Bible to be taken seriously, as truth, as God’s words, so that if we don’t do it, then we are calling God a liar. The Incarnational Jesus, is, God for real. It is approaching our humanity as something beautiful, wonderful, amazing, marvelous and good. You can almost hear these words being spoken as God creates us from out of the dust of the ground. beautiful, wonderful, amazing, marvelous and good. And again, as God is being emptied into flesh and blood, human likeness and form, as baby Jesus; beautiful, wonderful, amazing, marvelous and good. (Phil 2:6-7) Jesus is our connecting point with God. What we have experienced of the divine, through those thin places, mountain tops, and deep valleys are given greater testimony by God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus knows our pain and suffering. Our hunger and thirst, our joy and our beauty. Being passionate, full of emotion and laughing until we cry, and crying until our sorrow turns to dancing. Jesus knows our loneness, what it feels like to be abandoned, and to grieve a loss to death. Through the incarnation of Jesus, God knows us, and we get to know God. It matters. God for real. So then like the woman at the well, we are known by God, who testifies to Jesus as our truth. The ‘I am’ who is speaking to us. CONCLUSION We have an incarnational God who wants to be discovered and is revealing revelations of Glory, compassion, love, power, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and family all of the time. The goodness we see in is us is an incarnation of the goodness of God. God or real. Then when we read the Bible, it asks us to tell our story, this incarnation of the scripture brings God to us and testifies of a God who see good in us. This is NOT a we are broken and need to be fixed gospel. But this is a you are GOOD and loved by God Gospel! This is a, “Come, let’s get to live life with each other” Gospel. God for real. SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:1-6
TEXT: 4afor whatever is born of God conquers the world. THEME: God conquers the world through loving relationships. INTRODUCTION This passage describes how Nicodemus must have felt after his night time visit with Jesus in the Gospel of John. All we can think about is being born again and conquering the world. Oh no, now it sounds like a Zombie Apocalypse. When you Google “Zombie Apocalypse”, a link to the CDC pulls up (Yes, the Center for Disease Control and Preparedness) with a program they developed in 2011 for middle schoolers called. Zombie Preparedness 101. In it are topics such as; Emergency Response, Emergency Kit, Check List, Backpack Plan, Disease Detectives along with school-wide Activities, History, a Graphic Novel and a Poster. The lessons for Educators consist of case scenarios where the students engage in preparedness in the face of a disaster or Pandemic. It’s very clever. This could be how the author of 1 John may have seen Christianity conquering the world for God, because through Jesus’ death and resurrection, aren’t we the rising of the “undead” in the nicest possible way? SCRIPTURE Believe Jesus is the Christ, be Born of God, Love and Conquer the world. This is a simple formula for world domination. It is all based on a compelling relationship with God, redefined through revelations of Jesus, that inform our relationships with God and each other. And if we need help, there is a baptism with water to remind us to turn to God, there is a new covenant in Jesus’ blood that redefines our relationships with love, forgiveness, grace and life, and we have the Holy Spirit to empower to help us to be transformed and transform our relationships with others. APPLICATION The question Nicodemus asks is, “How can I be born again?”. The question we should today is, “What does born of God living look like in our world today?” Our belief in Jesus changes our view of the world, life and death. It shifts our priorities from the amassing of stuff, power and prestige in this life, to a long-range perspective that includes eternal relationships. Love then, is the most valued commodity in this new reality. But love is not exclusive to the afterlife, it is to be put into practice today as the driving force of the world domination of the rising of the nicest possible ‘undead’, aka, Christians. Those who believe are born of God and family to each other. There is a whole lot of transformative work that needs to be dismantle, redefine and reconstruct in our relationships. Many of our habits, practices, traditions, cultural and biases needs to be informed by the love of Christ. The nature of the pandemic, is that it does not discriminate in any way, by race, age, sex, orientation, status, wealth or theology. The love we have in Jesus Christ should not either. And it should be as broad spreading and contagious. How we live the love of Jesus in our lives and practice it, should compel others to copy us and live by the love of Jesus too. The love that God has, is for all people, and challenges our bias and prejudice. We see this in the way law enforcement treat some but not others. We see it in the suppression of voters, we see it in unequal opportunities, pay and advancement. Our nation is slow to change. The Civil Right movement of the 60’s was only living into the realities won by the Civil War. We still persist to hold different standards for those who are privileged, by no other reason than skin color, even though the majority race in the United States today is mixed. Yesterday on NPR, the reported-on algorithms that created job screening applications revealed biases that programmers inadvertently imbedded in the mechanical review process. Our prejudice is so deep seated that even the artificial intelligence we create cannot escape it. Our recognition of our bias is the first step towards making our treatment of each other fair. We can see the colonial, imperialistic influences in the treatment of indigenous people all over the world. Driven by financial gain, they ripped the wealth from nations, enslaved people, force laborers in deplorable conditions that denied them of their human dignity. This attitude is now extended to immigrants on our boarders. Love compels us to speak out. Love is a movement of change for dignity and respect. Love sees every human being as an equal and cannot justify treatment that is less than how we would want to be treated. Love votes because this is how we can have a voice and a representative who echoes our concerns. Love encourages being vaccinated to stop the pandemic and support the rising of Christ’s undead. CONCLUSION As difficult as Nicodemus’ conversation was with Jesus that night, he believed and was born of God. We are Christ’s undead, participating in Christ’s love to conquer the world. It starts by seeing others as our equal, brothers and sisters in the family of God. Loved by God just as much as we are loved. Doing the work of reconciliation through listening, patience, kindness, forgiveness, speaking up, having grace, coming along side, caring and inclusion. Belief, Born, Love, Conquer, is the rising up of Christ’s undead in our world, loving in this world and beyond. SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:17-21
TEXT: 18aThere is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; THEME: Loving acts cast out fear. INTRODUCTION I know I am nearing the ‘career free’ stage in life, because I am having to retell my ‘cow story’, (for lack of not having a new story to tell). When I attended the University in Hilo, this guy from Holy Cross Church, hired me on Saturdays to come and work on his 40 acres homestead. We cut buffalo grass, hacked away at guava trees, and did other odds and ends for a hearty Breakfast, Forty bucks and a lunch/dinner at the end of the day with; smoke meat, eggs, steak, hamburger, and rice. One day he had me stand on a rise and said, “We are herding the cattle into the pen down there. I am going to chase the cattle in your direction. When they come towards you, wave your arms and yell, and they will run away from you and go down towards the corral.” Then he disappeared, behind a few rolling hills. He was a small Japanese man, but tough as nails. He must have been gone for at least half an hour as I waited on the bluff wondering, “What I have gotten myself into this time?” Then in the distant, beyond my sight I heard “Ho, Whooo, Ho”, and I waited. “Ho, Whooo, Ho” again, then from over the rise I see this cow, coming straight for me, followed by twenty more, and a tail of twenty in tow all coming towards for me, Then the Japanese man, in the distance running after them, yelling and waving his hat at them. The lead cow was what 3-4 hundred pounds to my 130. Yes, I was 130 in college. Yikes! I just googled a cow’s weight is more like 1,200 lbs. running towards me. Was I afraid? You bet! I should have run away, but I trusted in what he told me. I raise my arms to the sky, waved them back and forth and started to yell, “Haaaa, Hooooooo, Ha” The cow heard me and looked up, saw me, then planted its feet, changed direction and turned away down the hill towards the corral. The other cattle followed suit, they were more afraid of me, than I was afraid of them. This is when I realized how powerful fear can be in changing our direction, if we think about it, sometimes our fears are irrational, we need to determine what the truth really is, and then hold on to the direction God wants us to go. SCRIPTURE Fear is one of those things that keeps us on the sidelines, afraid to jump into the game, hesitant to participate in what’s going on. Fear keeps us at bay, withholding our contributions and settling for a perceived safety instead of a changed future. Fear keeps us in healthy boundaries, but can be manipulated to control us, to repress us, to keep us silent. Love helps fear to keep us safe, but also liberate us when fear’s hold on us is too restrictive. Love opens up the fear that keeps us from the life God has for us to enjoy. Love is willing to risk suffering, and endure seasons of pain. Love is unselfish and desires the very best for us, love keeps perspective, and helps us to navigate around fear’s pit falls, in order to accomplish a greater good. This passage has moved many beyond their timidness into the forefront, as champions for what God wants, to speak out to reveal hidden abuse, over their own comfort to combat injustice. Love gives us a confidence, that even death cannot take away, because love resurrects us to life. APPLICATION This is how I usually understood this passage, but what if we took another look at actions initiated by a “perfect love” that casts out fear. We did this at our Zoom Council meeting where we named a fear and then imagined a loving act that would help in that fearful situation. Such as a person who is approaching surgery or a medical procedure. Love will pray for the doctors, the medical staff, the facility, for calmness, for anxieties to be articulated to God, for fears rational as well as irrational prayers. Knowing that there are those who care and are praying to God brings a sense of community, belonging, and relief. The fear of food scarcity and hunger is lovingly addressed by our Food Pantry. There is a stewardship of resources being shared with those who do not have as much. Community is being formed between the regulars of the Food Pantry and the church. In fact, what they do at the Food Pantry is church with; prayer, singing, laughter, sharing and love. COVID-19 has us all afraid. To address this fear, we began by sheltering in, washing hands and wearing a mask. We continue to love by getting vaccinated when it is our turn, having worship on Facebook, spraying down the sanctuary, Zoom Meetings, refraining from singing, creating a contact list of attendees. These have become the new acts of love that allow us to worship together and love each other at the same time we are apart. There is a fear of not having enough money. We are afraid of poverty. Against my better judgment, I answered a “No Caller ID” call. I have been having to answer a few numbers that I don’t recognize for numerous reasons and let my guard down. I didn’t catch their name at first so I asked who was calling. They identified themselves from Publishers Clearing House asking me to enter their sweepstake. I promptly told them I was not interested and asked them to take me off of their call list. If they are reputable, that is all you need to do and they say, “Thank you, and that it will take a few days.” But the response I got was, “Don’t you want to win a lot of money?” I repeated, “Please take me off of your call list.” Then I got a rant of profanity so I hung up. Obviously, this was a scam trying to get personal information by luring me with the promise of money. But this probably was motivated by a fear of not having enough money, and relying on this scam to provide for themselves. Love stands its grounds, love has good manners, love is astute and not easily duped, love has a hope for those who want to take advantage of us, and prays that they will find other means to accomplish what they really need. There is a fear that we have given into, that ‘other’ have come to take what we have. This fear draws hard lines and builds walls to insulate and protect what we have. These ‘others’ come from places of hurt, fear, escape, violence, and sacrifice. Love opens our hearts to hear their stories. Their hopes and dreams are much like our own. We begin to empathize with their journey of hope. To see our resources as something to be shared rather than protected. To enrich our lives with learning, sharing, in order to build a rich and diverse community. Love sacrifices our illusions of racial prejudice for the dream of the family of God being made up of all nations as the People of God. The fear for shelter is exacerbated by our expensive housing market making it difficult for those who have been raised here, to raise their family where they grew up. In the neighborhoods that are familiar, close to work, school, and medical care. Love has compelled us to care for our neighbor and to pursue the building of affordable rental units on our Mission Ground. The perfect love that casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God first loved us…. Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 1 John 4:18b-19,21b CONCLUSION Fear can charge us like 1,200-pound cow, if we forget about God’s perfect love for us. So, wave our arms and yell, putting our confidence in God’s love for us, that does not seek to punish or to hurt us. We take the love of God, and live it, by being loving to our neighbor. We address the fears of our neighbors with acts of love that; pray, share, feed, care, practices manners and makes God visible in a world by what we do. A world that needs to be loved, with actions that enable them to let go of their fears, and schemes for escape, to instead live-in relationship with God. |
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April 2024
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