John 4:43-54

John 4:46-50, “Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.  And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.  When the man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “You will never believe.”  The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”  Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.”  The man took Jesus at his word and departed.

There’s a saying, “Where the rubber hits the road.”  I think it’s about aligning what you say with how you act, what you believe with what you do.

I have caught myself telling my wife or my children not to leave dirty dishes in the living room only to walk by and see the glass I was using earlier on the side table.

I have caught myself telling a friend to leave it to GOD, let it go and they’ll feel better… only to find myself worrying about a bad decision I made that eats away at my mind and makes me a pain to be around.

We can learn something from the “certain royal official” who ran into Jesus in Cana.  We can doubt, we can hide, we can worry, we can ignore, BUT! We can also take Jesus at his word and get on with our lives.

There’s a song I learned as a child, which has always stuck with me. It goes like this…  Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so, little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.

This is a big world we live in, and there are problems with family, friends, and work that are overwhelming for us.  BUT, we are not alone!  GOD is with us in all that we do, even if we are trying to shut GOD out, GOD is with us.  So when you’re down and out, when your fears are overwhelming please repeat these words… Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so, I am weak, but he is strong. Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves, for the bible tells me so!  AMEN!

Precious Father, Loving God, Holy Spirit, Today, I will come across problems and situations which will cause me to worry and doubt and fear the world around me.  Lord, please give me the faith to take Jesus at his word and know that Jesus loves me as I am, where I am, and who I am! AMEN!

Jim Dietvorst

But rejoice in so far as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:13

On Sunday, Pastor Dave’s sermon was entitled “God’s Playbook.” Text for the day was from1 Peter 4:12-19. He reminded us of how life is like football.

Some questions to help you reflect on Sunday’s message:

• Check out “The Play Stanford vs. Cal 1982” on YouTube.  What lesson(s) do you see of a spiritual nature?

• How is God’s mission like football?
o Leave the bleachers and get in the game?
o The huddle is critical but not the game.
o Always keep the ball in play.
                                                  o Never give up.

What lessons might God be teaching you?

• Read 1 Peter 4:12-19.  What sufferings surround you?  Pray over those sufferings and ask God that God might be “joy” (vs. 13) and “glorify” you (vs. 6).

Matthew Ch.6 Vs. 9-13

9 “Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 10 “May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 11 “Give us today the food we need, 12 “and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. 13”And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” NLT

Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer is teaching us the will of his father. Jesus tells us that God is not only holy and Lord of all but is also loving and compassionate. The heavenly Father is loving and personal. One of the hardest things for me to learn is to listen with the spirit and not just the head. God’s will and love is spacious enough to accommodate everything about us, what’s in our hearts, our heads and our feelings. He knows what lies in our subconscious and what we hold in our memories. We don’t have to prove or defend anything with God; just let him help us to see who we truly are in him.

As I prepare to take a small vacation from the everyday ups and downs of life I pray that I might learn of the freedom that comes with letting go. I pray that I might have the discipline to rest in the Lord, to listen in hopes of hearing, maybe even gain a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of the peace that the world can not give.

Lois Autterson

Father God,

Help us to discipline ourselves to rest in you. May your spirit be alive in us. Mold us to be compassionate people, to see you in all people and in all creation. Thank you for those you have put in our paths who lead and guide us. Thank you most of all for the gift of your son, Jesus.

Amen

2 Corinthians 10:5 (MSG) "We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ."

Look around the house. What are the THINGS that have shown up in annual Christmas photos year after year? I love to take pictures. I have many. Somehow snapping a picture is synonymous with stopping in my tracks to capture moments of my life.

I've thought a lot about how much stuff we bring into the house. We shop and bring home boxes and bags full of stuff. Each week the garbage is graciously picked up and clearly the volume being dumped into the garbage truck does not equal the volume taken in the week before. And so things start piling up.

I looked at our drink glasses today and know that they are 6 years old. Brenda gave us a set of the billiard glasses as a house warming gift when we moved from Blackbird to Shadowbrook. We use these glasses all the time. They are the favorite drink glasses in the house. Whatever happened to all the glasses we drank from before? I do recall the Las Maisons glasses we had at Blackbird that were a thank you gift from Joyce Homes when we bought the house on Blackbird. Those glasses only disappeared because we broke them - one at a time - until we only had one left. Who wants to drink alone? And so that glass family retired from daily use and were replaced by the billiard glasses.

Sets of things break or get lost. When there are insufficient pieces left to be whole, then we get a new whole. One set of glasses used for 11 years phased out and a new set incorporated into our daily regime.

I think that's synonymous with my relationship with Jesus. We poke along in life using the same tools that have been in our toolbox that are tried and true. Then a tool breaks. Broken relationships. Death. Abandonment. Change of surroundings. Job changes. Loss of health.

I suddenly no longer cope in the same way with new life issues because my tools are not capable of fixing the problem. Just like having a flat head screwdriver to screw a Phillips screw. It doesn't work. I need new tools to handle life. I'm thankful that God's toolbox is always full of great tools. All I gotta do is reach into His toolbox and become retooled to do his work.

Dear Jesus,
Mold me into your new tool today. I am your vessel and await your touch and molding. Help me not to hold onto my broken tools and to be pliable in your gentle hands. Help me to throw away those things that are no longer useful. Form me to your service. Amen.

Isaiah 64:8 "..We are the clay, you are the potter."

Carole Schumacher

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Super Bowl.  I honestly think in the United States it is the festival event that marks the end of the holiday season. For some, the game is a big deal. Others want to watch Madonna, LMFAO, and Cee Lo Green perform at halftime. The real deal that draws in all the masses are the commercials. Super Bowl commercials have become a cultural phenomenon in their own right.

Every commercial carries two messages. The first is the obvious one of the experience or product the company is selling. The other is delivered over and over again, in various guises and disguises: “The gospel is wrong. The gospel is wrong.”  I am not teaching others not to watch the commercials, but I am on a crusade of sorts to teach others to deconstruct the commercials, and to understand the power of the “sound bites.”  Biting us where it hurts spiritually.

Watch the commercials and ask yourself... is there a message contained therein that places the focus of intent upon “what about ME?” Most advertisers want us to gain the perception that we are to be treated as ” little gods” who deserve to have the world spin around us. The gospel of Jesus Christ professes a creator who made us, and gave us a Savior to be followed. Our Lord Jesus served us, so that we might be servants of one another. The gospel flies counter cultural to the messages of the 3.5 million dollar, 30 second Super Bowl sound bites.

Only in the gospel of Jesus is there truth to meet the evils of this world head on. “ Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you….rejoice insofar as you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ…"(1 Peter 4:12,13)  No product advertised this Sunday night or ever can match the worth of such truth as this.

For your prayers this day, a thought from the band Caedmon’s Call: “This world has nothing for me, and this world has everything. All that I could want and nothing that I need.”

Still in One Peace,

Pastor David J. Jensen

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” ~C.S. Lewis

It was 8:00, the snow was flying, and I had to drive back to Greeley. I hadn’t done any of my homework yet. I still didn’t have my laptop working. I was nearly five days behind in all my classes. The immediate thought going through my mind was “Stop the world, I want to get off.”

As many of you know, back in September, I took a volunteer position with the Boy Scouts of Denver as the top youth volunteer. Having been in training through December, I was excited to get started. As I also began a new semester of college, I was ready to put myself to the test to see if I could juggle being a full time college student with this new management role.

I officially started on the job January 1st. Suddenly my inbox was flooded with emails, my cell phone was instantly maxed out of minutes, and everyone I knew seemed to have some sort of problem they expected me to fix. Not to mention, classes this semester brought a surprising increase in homework, compared to the fall.

But the most irritating and urgent item at the start of the new school year was when my laptop broke down. Being the first week of class, I tried to manage everything on my ipod, figuring I could catch up on a computer when I went home for meetings on the weekend. Homework, scout emails, meeting schedules, conference calls…there seemed to be an app for everything I needed. But soon the juggling act grew too great. Day and night, my inbox was hit with close to 300 emails. Homework was heavy as ever and I seemed to spend more time in the library that first week than I did all of last semester.

When the weekend came, nothing even slowed down.  The phone calls, the action items, the homework, the emails, the complaints, they all kept coming. Quickly I found that I was tired,  I was aching, I had a pounding feeling in the back of my head, and every time I checked my email, I felt like I was going to throw up.

As I sat in my last meeting for the weekend, I was at the end of my rope. It was 8:00, the snow was flying, and I had to drive back to Greeley. I hadn’t done any of my homework yet. I was nearly five days behind in all my classes. I still didn’t have my laptop working. The immediate thought going through my mind was “Stop the world, I want to get off.”

In that moment, I felt pretty sorry for myself. The worst part was that I had created the situation. I’d chosen harder classes. I’d asked for this job. I had thought I could handle it but it was eating me alive. Plus there was no way out. Even if I got on top of all I had to do, I couldn’t just will my laptop fixed. That took time, and if I took the time, I was going get even further behind.

Isn’t that the worst feeling of all? To be living a nightmare that you created for yourself. Rather it’s a situation at work, in school, in a relationship, etc. have you ever reached a point where you say to yourself, “I screwed up and I have no idea how to fix it”?

That is exactly what I said to my friend Bryan as we were wrapping up the meeting. Bryan, who also volunteers with me in the Boy Scouts, chuckled a little and looked at me very empathetically. He smiled and said, “Do you want to borrow my laptop for the week?”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “I can make something work for a few days if it will help you out.”

His words absolutely broke a frozen sea inside of me. I was stunned, shocked, and grateful. My own laptop tends to be my lifeline for all that I do. Not having it had magnified my burden. Yet here my friend was willing to take on that burden. He was willing to give up his lifeline for me to be successful.

Friends are a wonderful gift. In Ecclesiastes, the author talks about how friendship is one of the things that gives life meaning. He says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10)

Not only did Bryan’s friendship help me up out of my own pity party, it got me thinking, “Isn’t this what so much of the bible is about?” Story after story tell us about people who think they have it figured out, who go about life thinking they know what will work, only to realize they’re so lost, they have no hope of helping themselves.  How many situations do we get ourselves into that we have no way to fix on our own?

Luckily, Jesus saves us every time. He is a tremendous friend to us. He is willing to take on our burdens. He was willing to give up His everything for us to be successful. So when we reach that moment of saying “I screwed up and I have no idea how to fix it” Jesus is there to say “I can make something work.”

May you be blessed by wonderful friends, this week (and always) and may you know that you have a friend in Jesus who is always ready to “make something work.”

Zach Herzog

“The light is what guides you home, the warmth is what keeps you there.” ~ Ellie Rodriguez
                      Quote from Terry Hershey’s recent Sabbath Moment

On Sunday, we were honored and blessed by the presence of author and writer, Terry Hershey. Many of us spent the day before at The Power of Pause workshop, led by Terry. His sermon was entitled Born to Dance, using text from Matthew 5:14-16. Terry shared stories, encouraging us to let go of labels and worries of what others think and to let our light shine. During the 10:30 service, we celebrated the Holy Baptism of Sabrina Jaydn Meador, welcoming  her into  the Lord’s family.

Questions to help you reflect on Sunday’s message:

• What power does Pause have in your current life?  What power would you like to see Pause have?  How might the answer to these questions shape your prayers and plans?

• What labels have you given yourself or allowed others to give you that keep your light from shining?  How might you change the labels you have applied to others to help them let their light shine?

• Reflect upon being “Born to Dance.”  What does it mean for your life that you were created to dance?

• Pray for the guidance of God to “let your light shine.” Matthew 5:16

• Pause an extra time this week to reflect upon how the story of God weaves through your life.

Click here to read Terry Hershey's Sabbath Moment for today, January 30th, 2012. He references time spent in Denver. You can also sign up to automatically receive his Sabbath Moments every Monday...highly recommended! 

“The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.”

           Matthew 16:1

Miracles have a very specific purpose.  They are intended to glorify God and bring people to faith.  When your faith is doubted, the desire to see a miracle is very strong.  Jesus knew that even if he performed a miracle, his critics still would not accept his divine identity.

To have complete faith is to be able to accept the situations you are in, whether good or bad, and know that God has placed you there for a certain reason.  Sometimes we do not know what the reason is, but when we have the ability to let go and turn everything over to God the answer will be come apparent.

Dear God, I ask for you to help me to not always be looking for the miracle to happen.  Give me the faith to know that you are always there to take care of us all during the good and bad times in our lives.  In your son’s name, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Deanne Cruikshank

“Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 NKJV

Taking that leap of faith at God’s calling to be a missionary may seem enormous, as are those first encounters of the mission work where you wonder just what did you get yourself into, and what possibly was I thinking?  A commonality among all who have ever performed missionary work, either local or afar is that all have expressed a very deep sense of gratitude for their everyday lives and that their lives were dramatically touched by the caring and generosity of those receiving the gifts of time and labor the missionaries have offered. So today, I would like to offer a special prayer for missionaries.

Dear God, thanks for being with those that minister to others, locally, regionally or globally.  We ask that you reach out to them so they might know of your presence and watchfulness over them.  Keep them safe from harm and relieve other fears they may be experiencing. May they provide their services with confidence and remain focused on their purpose.  Help provide emotional preparation for the tasks that are presented to them. Help them remain emotionally strong and provide an open mind to future opportunities.  God we pray you watch over them since we might not always be present in their experiences.  And we pray, people will know they are Christians by their love. Amen.

Thanks to all the missionaries who are serving or have served others with love and care.

Wendy Saatoff

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It has been a month since Christmas! Wow? Time seems to zip by faster each day. There was a time in my life when I could remember every week and month and year. Now I remember decades more easily than I remember individual years. Time seems to go by so quickly.

When Billy Graham was asked what had been his greatest surprise in life, he answered, “The brevity of it.” That is so true. Time marches on...

Scripture certainly echoes this idea of shortness of human life. Job said , “Now my days are swifter than a runner; they flee away, they see no good.” (Job 9:25) King David said, “Indeed , You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every person at their best state is but                                                           vapor.” (Psalm 39:5)

And James posed this question: “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.“ (James 4:14) James wasn’t asking a philosophical question, but a more descriptive one. A better way to translate it would be, “What sort of life do you have?”

“What sort of life do you want to have?” How you are determined to use God's gift of time, will go far in determining the answer to this question.

As we ponder TIME and God’s gift of chronology to each of us, let us each take PAUSE.  Check out a Terry Hershey video clip  http://www.terryhershey.com/be-inspired/video. You will find these clips to be inspirational tools of God that will transform how you see time in your life. Better yet, this week I commend to you, that if you have not yet signed up for the Terry Hershey workshop coming this Saturday, that you PAUSE to do so right now! ….Click here to sign up.

Terry Hershey will be our guest preacher this Sunday. See you there!

Still in One Peace,

Pastor David J. Jensen