July 22, 2017

Greetings My Friend,

"Getting our church and our home in spiritual order" was the theme at the revival. The preaching style was difficult at first for me to listen to, the Pastor used the word "amen" after each word he said. I wanted to be upset but somewhere inside of me I felt I was to listen. As I let go of my irritation I started to hear a very good message. Some preaching styles are uncomfortable although this style feeds many people so is it wrong? No, it is not, those people who enjoy this style maybe equally uncomfortable with sermons that are spoken with good grammar, have a beginning, a middle and an end. As the body of Christ we need to worship Him, we need to seek souls to save not bodies to fill our churches with great entertainment. As believers we also need to get our spiritual walk outside of church going. Many of us worship on Sunday and on Monday we are living life as the world lives life, drinking, carousing, or some other sin of the flesh. We need to care for the body of Christ first because we will be known by our love, not if I am Presbyterian or Baptist, whatever denomination we belong to. Right now Junior and I cleaning out our spiritual house at home, our main focus for too long has been get the renovating done on the house we bought. In our prayers about why we can't get a contractor for the bedroom, bathroom suite is telling us we need to clean up the yard, clean off the porch and to take a Sabbath rest daily on the porch where we sit and be quiet, talk to each other. I don't know all that will come of this clean up, sit and be still lesson, I do know that God is teaching us something important. A few months ago Junior and I began a practice we did for 10 years before retirement and moving to Virginia and that is Bible study together and praying as a couple. We fell into the habit of doing these on our own as we always did but we dropped the couple time. We got out of sync with each other and our needs. Prayer is opening us to the struggles we each go through, how we can cope better and be stronger as a couple. We also undertook helping people in the community who were not willing to help themselves which left us drained and discouraged. As we have gone to prayer we find that we need to help those in need in the church first, as the church is made strong then we need to be concerned with helping the outside community. The church taking care of its own gets our house in order, our spiritual direction in the right alignment and then we can begin to win souls for Christ, not bodies to fill the pews. Many who walk down the aisle to give their lives to Christ are not returning to Christ or to church. We have to make wanting to be in a faith journey a genuine heart change moment for the duration of their lives. I am thankful for this set back with our renovating and being sent to the porch to have daily Sabbath rests. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet