Going with God

After 16 years of Sundays this was our last at New Covenant Fellowship. Serving as assistant pastors with our Brazilian brothers and sisters has forever changed and marked our hearts and lives. We have learned so much more than just Portuguese and how to enjoy a good plate of Vaca Atolada ( cow stuck in the mud), we have been adopted into a family. Just as in any family we’ve had our share of struggles and tears but in the end our hearts have been forever knit together by the love of Jesus Christ. We entered in to the church with hope and last night as they prayed for us a blessing we were given the verse from Isaiah 55: ” you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace…”

In Portuguese there is a farewell exchange : ” Vai com Deus” “Go with God” to which you reply “Fica com Deus” , “Stay with God”. That is what our hope and prayer has been. It has been a great honor to have served and as we go out with their blessings our prayer is that God’s blessings will remain in the hearts the hands and families of our church.

Where ever God is leading you today may you also experience His blessings as you go out with joy and His peace leads and directs your path!

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or you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isaiah 55:12 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/isa.55.12.NKJV

Walking in Light

Are you puzzling through making hard decisions today. Does it seem like everyone else knows what to do except you? Slow down and relax. Jesus told us that everything in life boils down to just two things…loving God and loving our neighbor. I have discovered that when I put aside all my trying to figure everything out and simply choose to love, that God takes control. He stills storms, multiplies bread and forgives sin, then guides me right down the road He has chosen all alonf!

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Not as the World Gives

After reading this verse have you ever stopped to ask, “How does the word give?” Thinking back to peace negotiations from the Vietnam war to the Palestinian conflict the press has focused on ‘peace talks’. The headlines and the world’s hopes are attached to talks which drag on for years all while people are still being killed. But Jesus is offering to give us a peace that is more than talk.. His peace requires no mediation by an outside party because He is the mediator between us and God. The peace Jesus offers us today has no terms other than His unconditional surrender on the cross and our unconditional surrender to Him. This peace is available immediately, lasts forever and is bought by His own blood. There is nothing nor will there ever be any other peace like it on earth. God is opening a peace conference just for us this morning. When we are done with our running away from Him; He is waiting to give us a peace that makes of enemies friends and of angry rebels His own sons and daughters!

 

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