This past Sunday was a wonderful experience with Rev. Kari Howard, VP of the NC Provisional Annual Conference of The Global Methodist Church!  She preached an awesome sermon entitled “Prepped and Ready” on the crossing of the Israelites over the Jordan River on DRY LAND.  This was a great reminder that God has prepared us for this day and wants us to be ready and able to complete His will for us. 

God wants us to be able to complete His will for our lives, and God prepares us for just that. I hope that is as comforting, encouraging, and challenging for you as it is for me. 

God has called each of us and has prepared us for His purposes.  Some purposes are unique or not shared by all believers, but some are held in common.  Those common callings are to worship God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; to pray to Him; to read His words recorded in Holy Scripture; to confess our sins; and to offer service to Him.  This last one has sub-categories that may be specialized, but each of us has an area where we can serve, and some areas of service may be held in common with all believers, such as acts of kindness, charity, the tithe, and witness to name a few. 

Prayer, Scripture, Confession, and Service are the four sermons of the next sermon series called “Back to the Basics.” These are a few of the fundamentals of faith.  Fundamentals seems to be a bad word about religion these days, but I am using the word in the sense of the base acts or skills needed for something … Just like baseball fundamentals.  In baseball, all players must be able to run, catch, throw, and hit.  (I know the Designated Hitter rule was expanded recently, but I don’t like it.) 

In the next four Sundays, we will talk about some of the basic practices of our faith and hopefully deepen our commitment to them and confidence in using them for God’s glory.

See you Sunday!

Peace,

Burt