We're meeting as church online during the period of Covid-19 nationwide lockdown. In today's message, John urges us to use our time wisely in lockdown. He encourages us to read Psalms and Proverbs, so that we can find comfort in God and grow in godly wisdom.
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Today is the last Sunday for the Redemptive family devotional series. Our Redemptive Family series has encouraged and challenged us. We have been given this time and this opportunity to understand the importance of the family. And many of us have realized that we need the assistance of all our church members; different age groups and cultural groups in Christ. As our family of God, I believe that our purpose here is to build a good and godly church today. The question is what we can do better to serve God’s purpose?
The Apostle Paul was a highly effective spreading the gospel because he knew the importance of working with others. He constantly formed mission partnerships. I wonder how many of these partnerships you could name, like Paul and Barnabas, Paul and …? The theme from our redemptive family course this week is, Doing mission together as family, and realising God never intended our mission to be done alone.
As a boy there were few things nicer to me than going for a meal at my Auntie Greta’s and smelling the aroma of her chicken soup. The smell of the soup on the stove was familiar, comforting and of course appetising. I wonder what aromas you enjoy, perhaps the smell of freshly ground coffee brewing or the smell of bread straight from the oven. Christians are to spread the aroma of Christ everywhere.
When I was a child, I found the word home a bit confusing. Our family had immigrated to New Zealand, yet whenever my parents spoke of home it never referred to where we lived, but to Northern Ireland were our wider family lived. I grew up thinking of home as some distant place on the other side of the world. This was a bit confusing, because in my late teens when I visited home in Belfast, and vaguely recognised some of my childhood haunts, it didn’t really feel like home. I liked it. I liked being with my family, but it wasn’t my home. Where do you most feel at home?
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