Sundays – First Service 8:45a | Formation Hour 10:10a | Second Service 11:15a

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Today’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 24, 29, 8, 84; Genesis 41:14-45; Romans 6:3-14; John 5:19-24

Today’s Writer: Will & Heather White

Thanks be to God for His creation.
Thanks be to God for allowing us the privilege of stewardship;
May His name be exalted in the things we do to care for it.
We desire to dwell forever with the Father.
Through Christ alone has the way been made to Him.
Through Christ alone shall we be deemed worthy;
Worthy not by things we have done, but through the grace He made available to us.

“In the beginning…,” we all know, is how Moses begins to recount God’s creation of the universe. At the moment of creation, God knew what His plan was and how it would turn out. Like a master craftsman, He shaped every blade of grass and painted the rainbows among the clouds. Then, turning to the earth itself, He creates His most beloved creation, us. From the dirt He creates those that He will give His own Son to save. He trusts us to be faithful stewards of His creation.

In the story of Joseph, we see how God is willing to bless us if we are but willing to turn to Him and trust that He wants the best for us all. Joseph goes from the lowest in all Egypt to second in command over all that Pharaoh rules. God blesses Joseph and makes it possible for him to achieve success in a most inhospitable place.

Seeing the beauty of God’s creation and feeling our souls yearning, it is easy to understand why we would want to spend eternity with the Most High. However, there is nothing that man can do to achieve that desire for an eternity with God. Like the traveler that is too stubborn to ask for directions, man stumbles about trying his best and failing to achieve his spiritual desires. Only when stopping long enough to accept that he is incapable of reaching Heaven on his own, can man realize that God, already knowing our personal failure was inevitable, has already made available our Savior, His son Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our one and only means of salvation… the ultimate arbitrator of our worthiness to dwell among the angels and forever praise our God. We are only able to fall on our knees and cry out, “Father, Father! Please forgive me!” Everything else is up to God, if we can but trust and worship Him with all that we are.

Image by Rusty Russ (used by permission via Creative Commons)