faithfulness Love

A Tiny Seed

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.                   Luke 17:6 ESV

If you are a little like me, you probably find yourself sometimes praying “Lord please, give me more faith!” When we feel like we are drowning in a sea of fear and we try grasping at straws floating on the water’s surface. But our good news for today is that Jesus did not require us to have a large quantity of faith. In fact during His time on earth,

Jesus seemed to take special delight in people who struggled to believe. After watching the Lord multiply bread for five thousand men the disciples got worried when they ran out of bread in their boat. He sat and talked to a woman by a well who probably never darkened the doors of her synagogue. He healed a man’s son after the father confessed his unbelief and made a special appearance for Thomas when he refused to believe the others about the resurrection. Imported from phone 065

So on nights when it feels like you are going under for the third time remember that our Lord loves to walk out on the water in the middle of storms. He came for the widow, the orphan and the poor. Jesus is moved when we pray with even a tiny seed of faith. When we trust the heart of God we will discover that He is ready to move anything blocking our path and help our faith to flower no matter where we are planted!

 

Washing Feet

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Why foot washing? Couldn’t Jesus have suggested something easier like hand washing or face washing?

But Jesus not only commanded that we wash one another’s feet: He humbled Himself to wash ours first.

It is a strange thing how washing feet shows Jesus that we love him and the world that He loves them! He washes us to prepare our feet to walk onto heaven’s holy ground. We wash one another to prepare each other to walk into the world and share the love of Christ.

With Lent on the horizon this is a good time to ask, “Am I ready and willing to wash someone’s feet today?”

Honoring our Parents

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What is honor and what does it mean to honor our parents? One way I have come to understand it is that honor is a combination in equal parts of love and respect. Honoring our parents means we can not love without respect and we should never respect without loving.

Every week as I visit nursing homes I see the results of a culture that has often forgotten how to honor its mothers and fathers. and has abandoned it’s parents.

Yes they are professionally cared for. Yes they are clean and well fed, but they mostly spend their days alone. Though we may be honoring our own parents, God is also calling on us to hear the cry of the forgotten ones. On January 18th hundreds of thousands reminded our nation about the value of the unborn. Today we need many more among God’s people to also remember those left alone in institutions. God doesn’t forget a single sparrow. If we forget these mothers and fathers we have forgotten the heart of God.