A community of faith can provide more than support when we are in need of help.
The members of a faith community can strengthen our determination to heal, can link their prayers to ours, and can restore us to faith. They can encircle us in caring and love.
Pray to God with all your heart and soul, then gather up your might to meet the
challenges that lie ahead. Prayer is not a passive activity. Prayer alters us. It awakens us. Our eyes begin to notice beauty where we never noticed it before. Our hearts begin to feel compassion we never knew we had. Our priorities shift. As we talk to God, we receive the encouragement to live up to the potential inside us. Soon we start to see beyond ourselves into the world that is waiting for our help.

I believe God is listening. And I believe God answers us. God’s answer to our prayers may be very different from the answer we were searching for. God’s reply might come as the strength to fight on. It may come as the courage to face what we have been fearing. God’s answer may be the ability to accept what we have been denying. Or it may appear as P in the face of despair. God is neither distant nor deaf. We are not alone. God is present in our lives. When we stop bargaining with God and start opening up our souls to God, our prayers suddenly start working. We can pray for strength and receive strength. Prayer is ultimately an experience, not a request. It is a sense of being connected, of
being part of something larger than ourselves. It is an endeavor to be in the presence of God.

Praying with a community alters us. Often when life hurts we pray by ourselves and
assume that we are alone in our pain. When we enter a community to pray our eyes open up. We see that we are not alone in our pain—there are others who suffer too. And we also realize that we are not alone in the world, there are dozens of people praying for us, extending their arms to help. Suddenly the nature of our prayers begins to change. We stop drowning in self-pity. We stop praying for ourselves alone. Before long we begin adding others to our prayers. We begin praying for our world. We begin to see our own troubles in a new light. Perhaps things aren’t as bad as they seemed after all. Sometimes a community’s prayers can literally save a life.

I personally have established my faith communities through Women’s Ministry, Life Group and throughout McGregor Baptist Church. I pray you have a faith community! If not, please join us and establish one as soon as possible. With the challenges of life, I cannot image what my life would be like without my prayer warriors!

 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. Romans 12:12

 Carol Bridges

I hope all of you had the opportunity to hear yesterday’s sermon.  I don’t think I have ever prayed for the lost quite the way I was moved to pray yesterday morning. I say that with deep conviction that I should be moved to pray that way every day.  I can’t even write about it without being moved to tears.  I think what helped me focus was that I was praying for specific people at a specific time of decision making.  Another thing that helped  was that my awareness of spiritual warfare made me want to fight for their
souls.   The burden didn’t leave me after I left the service.  I
had a hard time concentrating in my life group class.  I kept thinking
about and praying for  the next group that would be hearing the
message.  I don’t want that urgency to leave me.  Since the war is
invisible it is so easy to be distracted and forget what is a stake. 
 Forty years ago I was lost and sitting in the pew and I know someone was
praying for me.  I’m so thankful they cared enough to fight for me.  
 

There are labels and trademarks that we instantly identify with. Products like Apple, Nike, and many others are known by a very recognizable trademark. Did you know God also has a trademark? God's trademark is LOVE. He wants to be seen and known & identified by His love. John 13:31-35 gives us a good description of this love. Jesus was talking to His disciples in the upper room and told them that when the "Son of Man" is
glorified, God is glorified in Him. The Father and the Son as they are put on display advertise to a watching world, their Glory. God needs us to be His  "agents" to advertise His Love. We need to practice this love publicly and love one another as stated in      verse 34.
What is Love? Biblical love is "The decision to passionately and righteously seek the well being of another". This is contrasted with the word "like". We like based on how we feel about others. This is an ever-changing thing. Jesus didn't command us to like everybody, but John 13:34 says" A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I
have loved you, that you also love one another. vs. 35 "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (NKJV). This is a commandment, not a suggestion. Loving those you may not like, even your enemies, is what makes Jesus look real to the watching world. Do you ever wonder why you have "difficult" or "irregular" people in your life? God allows these people in your life to teach you to love what you don't like. These are symptoms that others can readily see. People quickly pick up on the fact of seeing someone demonstrate love to the difficult ones who are sometimes mean, nasty and hard to get along with. To follow Jesus' example, we must first realize that He loved us while we were yet sinners and then died for us. (Romans 5:8). I am afraid that
there are many of us who in God's "fan club", but are not His true disciples. A fan is someone who just wants to feel good about his or her life by going to church, singing hymns of praise, listening to a good sermon, going to a Bible study, etc, but not desiring the close intimate fellowship of Jesus, which requires commitment and action. 

John was referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He had the closest relationship of all with Jesus. He was so taken with the deep love of Jesus that he wrote an entire book about it. This is the book of 1 John. He tells us in I John 2:7, that he is giving us a "not new", but old commandment to love one another. It's not new in origin, but new in effect. An example of this is the sun is old, but each day as we witness a sunrise in all it's beauty,
it's new. John tells us that if we are not loving, we are in darkness. Loving one another is being in the light. The vertical relationship we have with God provides the light and prepares us for the horizontal relationship of loving one another.

Food versus family. Sometimes we think we can have one without the other, but we cannot. If anyone remembers having teenagers in their home, we remember how they like to be alone in their room with all their media devices and not be with the family, except when they are hungry. Then they will come down and find food sometimes to take back up to their room. They want the food, but not the family. We do this in church too. We want the food of church every Sunday, a great song by the choir, a good message by the pastor, but we don't want any commitment. We don't want to join, because then something might be required of us. We must realize that the "food" without the "family"
will never satisfy. If our connection is broken vertically, we are in darkness, and we can't be effective in our family. relationships. If God seems distant from you, check where you are hanging out. If there is no horizontal love, you God connection is broken. I John 3: 16 tells us that "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our life for the brethren." Love is both word and deed. We  must abide in Christ. We demonstrate this by hanging out with God's family. When we disconnect from God's involvement with us on this earth and do not love His family, we are in
darkness. God's nature is Love. That is who He is. We must be about seeking the
betterment of others. We can't see God, however, when you are a loving Christian, He can demonstrate Himself through you. When God is abiding in you and you are abiding in Him, He is hanging out with you. I John 4:17 says " Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world." (NKJV). We can have confidence in the judgment if our life has demonstrated loving one another. 

The product of God's wonderful free gift of Salvation is demonstrated to the watching world by our loving one another. So, be full of God's love! Love well and be a "grace-giver". 1 John 4:19 " We love Him because He first loved us". Thank you Jesus, for your lavish love that You freely give to us!

These thoughts were compiled because I was so touched by a two part message  by Dr. Tony Evans on loving one another. Much of this content is from those two messages which impacted me so greatly, I wanted to
share it with each of you.


Love in Christ,


Linda Davis

Prayer
Team Leader

I was standing at the deli counter at Publix, waiting for my turn, when a little 4-year-old girl with blond curls walked by me. I smiled at her confidence and said hello. She measured me up, then went to grab a Jello off the counter. She brought it to me and said: Jello? I said no thank you, I don’t really like Jello. She gave me a surprised look, then she said: Well then you can’t come to the Jello Stand. I said: Ok. After this she made her way to the Hawaiian rolls section and brought me a pack: how about some bread? Again I said: No thank you – and smiled at her. She walked away and brought back a smaller pack of rolls to me. And again, I had to deny. She finally looked at me and said: I’m really trying to help you here…

I smiled at her comment at that time, but later I kept thinking about how many times God says to me the same thing: I’m really trying to help you here! 

Have you ever asked God to help you? I’m sure you have. Lord help me be more patient! Lord help me be more loving and kind! Lord help me persevere! Then the next thing you know, you are angry, frustrated and nothing about you seems loving or kind. So what is happening? Does He not want to help us? He does, but not the way we want Him to most of the time.

Trying harder to be patient, loving and kind is impossible. You can’t do it. I can’t do
it. Love, joy, peace kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control are the fruit of the Spirit. The key word is FRUIT, not work. You can’t DO anything to get it. It is a fruit that
comes from the Spirit of the Lord. If you accept Jesus’ free gift of grace and trust Him to pay the pay the price for your eternity, He gives you the Holy Spirit God. 

So if we have the Spirit of the Lord, where is the fruit, you might ask? Why don’t we display these fruits all the time? What is it so hard?

Romans 8:5 says: “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”

Having our mind set on what the Spirit desires is simple, but not easy. The Holy Spirit is always going to help us focus on what Christ has done for us. He is the center, He is the hero, He is the one who loves us unconditionally. Focus on Jesus’ acceptance of you, given to you as a gift. He accepts you regardless of the amount of spiritual fruit you have produced. It is called GRACE. The beautiful thing about God’s work, is that the more you realize what His gift means to us, the more fruitful we will become. 

Have your mind set on Jesus. Rest in His love and acceptance. “The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.” (John 15:5)
Stop trying harder. Take a deep breath and enjoy His love for you. He will help us as long as we focus on Him.

 “…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

He is the one who does the work. He has a plan and He will accomplish it here on earth, and also in us. Jesus said: It is finished!  Rest in His Sovereignty and His love for you.