Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised!
Psalms 96:2-4a
Oh Lord our God, how blessed is Your name in all the earth! You are the Most High; the Creator of all that is; the One who is and was and is to come. Today we begin by praising Your name and exulting in Your faithfulness and righteousness. Thank You for giving us Your written word that by it, we may know You.
If You were not a compassionate God, we would have long ago been brought to nothing. Yet in Your mercy, You looked upon us in our rebellious state and had pity. You showed us grace when we deserved destruction and love when we deserved to be despised. Oh Lord, how can we know this and not love You back?
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
Mark 12:30
Please, Lord, forgive us any lack of love. Forgive us for ever allowing the worries of this world to cause us to doubt Your goodness. If we have allowed the pleasures of the world to take up a larger place in our hearts than You, we repent of that and ask forgiveness for it as well. Show us where these or any other acts of idolatry have replaced You in our hearts and lives, and prick our hearts to genuine and life-altering repentance.
Take our little love and grow it, Lord. Magnify it until all that we are is given over to You, bound by a love for You that is unbreakable, sturdy, and invincible. Where our love is small and weak, fill us with Your love so that we can return to You in kind the astonishing love You’ve already shown to us.
May we have a deep and abiding hunger for Your presence, Your word, Your Spirit, and Your Kingdom that never ends. We ask for this increase in our love for You in the worthy name of Jesus, amen.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
John 14:21
Running the Race 
On my blog today I wrote about not having faith during tough times. I am a big King James fan. These verses are what get me through tough times.
Psalm 30:5-6 New International Version (NIV)
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
6 When I felt secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”
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Those are some good ones for sure! Today I just felt like praising our God and praying for the church to love Him more and more.
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The saying goes that the best thing about churches is that there are people in them and the bad part is there are people in them!
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Haha!
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I was on my Board of Directors for years and the conversations would always turn to the business side of things. I was the Discipleship Director and at one meeting I had enough business talk and just made the following statement ” If we don’t take of the congregation we will have no money to talk about”.
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Too true. The people need to be cared for – volunteers and all. I’m in the midst of assimilating some management material and I’m amazed at how many Biblical principals are being shown to be true in the business world… and yet are not always implemented by the church.
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It took me 2 years to get AEDS put up in the church.
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Hmmm. Sorry to hear that!
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There is no reason for any public building not to have them.
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If we could only possess just a little bit of love…to be able to love as God loves, not as man loves….that would be so awesome.
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It would! By His grace and the Holy Spirit, I believe we can have a sliver of His amazing love. More would probably be too much for our mortal minds to deal with!
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