Hi FBC Friends!
But I, O LORD, cry to You; in the morning my prayer comes before You. (Psalm 88:13) There was another reminder in this psalm this morning about the great privilege we have of crying out to the Lord in prayer. How are you doing in that area? Are you seeing growth in the amount of time spent in prayer? Don’t get discouraged if you’re not quite where you want to be yet. (I’m not where I want to be either… yet.) Keep pushing yourself to grow, even a little at a time, in the discipline of prayer. Hopefully prayer will become a “first resort” for us, rather than a “last resort”!
Another great thing in today’s reading was Philippians 2:5-11. If you didn’t read that today, stop right now, open a Bible (or a Bible app!) and read that amazing passage. It may be one of the most important, most profound, most central passages for our Christian faith in all of the Bible. What an amazing equal-with-God, self-emptying, others-serving, divine-and-human-at-the-same-time, obedient, cross-bearing, highly-exalted, name-above-all-names, worthy-of-all-worship, Lord and Savior is the One and Only Jesus Christ! Have you bowed your knee to Him and confessed Jesus Christ is Lord?!
Don’t forget tonight is the first night of AWANA (except for Cubbies, which starts Nov. 7)! We are looking forward to another great season of training boys and girls (and their parents) to know, love, and serve Jesus! For all parents – we will begin our ‘Pointers 4 Parents’ class tonight as well. This year we will be using the book Discovering the JOY of Parenting by Barbara Bauman. We will study together some key Scriptures associated with parenting, and discuss practical issues parents face. I look forward to seeing you tonight!
On Sunday we will continue our sermon series on the Spiritual Disciplines with a message on Evangelism. Now, many Christians practically shrivel up and go running off to the corner when this topic is brought up. Please don’t! I think you’ll find some encouragement and challenge in the message this week. I will be using a number of various verses again, but for now I’d encourage you to read and meditate on 1 Peter 3:15 in preparation for Sunday.
As I was preparing this message this week, I received quite a bit of information about My Hope America with Billy Graham. Dr. Graham shares one more (and probably his final) message of salvation that he wants to get out to the world. It is entitled, The Cross. It will be shown on television stations around the country beginning November 7. For churches, the message is being sent out on DVDs that can be shown in individual homes. They are challenging Christians to sign up to be a “Matthew”, based on the story of Matthew inviting his unbelieving friends to meet Jesus (Matthew 9:9-13). The strategy includes writing down the names of people you want to invite, praying for them daily, and then inviting them to your home for some food and to watch the video. I hope to talk more about this Sunday and possibly share a video about the strategy. In the meantime, if you want to see what it’s all about, you can go to: www.myhopewithbillygraham.org. Please be in prayer about how God would want you to participate!
There are some important things in your bulletin this week, including a Life Chain at Brownsville Assembly on Oct. 27, Trunk-or-Treat on Oct. 31 (subtle hint: we need more candy!), and the Samaritan’s Purse Shoe Box gift drive, which are due Nov. 10.
Also, thank you to many volunteers who have been helping with the work on the classrooms and the clean-up! We are getting closer…
I’m excited about what the Lord is up to here at FBC Brownsville! I think our best days are still ahead. Thank you for praying and for partnering in the spread of the gospel!
Love From Your Pastor,
Michael