Love God, Love Others

Pastor Q’s message last Sunday was to love God and to love others. These are my sermon notes, and I hope that you enjoy the sermon as much as I did.

Bible Verses Used

Colossians 3: 12~17

Matthew 7: 1~5

Luke 6: 27~38

Romans 2: 1

James 4: 11~12

Romans 14: 10

We need to put our roots down deep in God. There are surface roots, but if there’s no rain, the plant will wither and die. The first time a storm comes along, you are in deep yoghurt. Put your roots down deep. God looks at our ♥♥♥ ~ you can’t do without God’s love.

Let love guide your life; then the whole church will stay together in perfect harmony. We are the church. There are many people who have their “church persona” and the “rest of their life persona”. We need to have the same persona throughout the whole week.

Jesus commandments are:~

• Love God.
• Love others.

You can’t be a God~lover and not love others. The human tendency is to stand on the sidelines and not to pitch. We are not to judge others, for with the measure with which we judge others is the measure with which we will be judged. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Who are you to judge your neighbour? When you criticise someone else, you are going where you are never meant to go. How many times have I sat in judgement? If a person’s drowning, they will push you under in order to save themselves. There is no excuse for pushing someone down in order to elevate yourself.

We are to pray for our enemies. Criticism is the major instrument that Satan uses to destroy the church. Peace, harmony and unity are what God wants within our church today. Unless your roots are down deep, it is easy to go Satan’s way. There is a narrow way or a broad way ~ the broad way is the easiest way.

Gossiping is passing on information when you are not a part of the problem or a part of the solution. People who will gossip to you will also gossip about you. People who gossip cannot be trusted with your confidences. The greatest wounds come from other sheep, not from the wolves. Gossip is not meant to be a part of our lives. When people gossip, they are destroying harmony and unity within the church. If they are gossiping, confront them with this. We each have talents and abilities, and the church needs each one of us. God blesses churches that are united. God is looking for a church that will build and strengthen believers.

People are looking for acceptance and love when they come to our church, a church where every person can be:~

• Accepted
• Loved
• Valued

Leaders and pastors are not perfect, but they need your support and prayers to build the church that God wants. We want God to be welcome to walk into our church, and we need to work together.

No matter what comes, we shall stand and we shall build the church that God wants.

I’m in the Lord’s Army…

…or perhaps that should be, “I’m in the wars, ah me.”

On Mother’s Day, we arrived home from our picnic at Spring Gully, and I brought the cat’s water and dry food back from the hallway, when the unthinkable happened – I dropped the dry food bowl, and it shattered on the hearth, cutting my foot. I pressed down on the cut; the bleeding slowed, and my husband disinfected the cut and taped it up for me. I went to bed and didn’t think much more about it until morning. My daughter cleaned up the hearth and the lounge room. Our lounge room is 6 metres by 4 metres, and the Whiskettes covered over half of it. They went absolutely everywhere – under the chairs, under the coffee table and were in every conceivable place that you could think of, and probably then some.

The next morning (Monday morning), I went out to water the strawberries, and the first step that I took was absolute agony. You see, inside we don’t wear shoes, but when I placed the shoe against the cut, I nearly went through the roof, quite literally. I watered the strawberries and the parsley, then asked my husband to take a look at my foot. He untaped it, and I screamed from the pain – the cotton wool had stuck to the wound, and it was nearly 50mm x 8mm. When I screamed, Moonlight, my daughter’s cat (in theory) came running and jumped onto my daughter’s lap and then onto mine – he stood there staring at me, and I suppose he was wondering what was wrong. He settled down onto my lap, and since then, he hasn’t been too far from me.

My husband made an appointment with the doctor, and he placed four stitches in it. During the procedure, while the doctor was placing the anaesthetic into my foot, my foot jumped, and the doctor ended up with an anaesthetised eye. He stitched my foot up, and we left the doctor’s surgery, but I wouldn’t have realised how difficult it is to walk with stitches in your foot. This wasn’t the worst part – I have been house-bound for the last five days, as I couldn’t even get a shoe onto my foot. Imagine walking around the goat yard with no shoes – I can’t even bear to think about it!

During the first few days, I developed an infection in my foot, with the wound site being extremely red, sore and hot,  so I have been on antibiotics to help clear that up. On Tuesday night my husband lit the fire, and it smelled like there was something cooking, but he didn’t take any notice. By bed time, however, it was starting to smell pretty good, so he found the torch and started searching. Apparently when the dry food bowl shattered and the dry food went everywhere, some of it managed to find its way onto the top of the firebox through a 10mm gap where the fan blows the heat out. There were about 10 pieces there, and they were very well toasted, so much so that the cats couldn’t even chew them up!

A friend of mine phoned, and offered to pray for my foot, as the antibiotics weren’t really working – this was on the Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning the infection had settled, and my foot was feeling very much better. I praise God for healing and I thank my friend, Gwenda, for praying for health and healing for my foot. Our God is a God of miracles, but all too often we think of Him as a last resort, when we should be thinking of Him first!

My foot is starting to settle down now, but by night time, I really do know that I have a left foot. I have the stitches out on Thursday, and I will breather such a sigh of relief. This last week has been rather a struggle, so I hope that you’ll forgive my lack of visiting.

Tea Talk

I’m Having:~
Dilmah Green tea in a pure white cup and saucer – my husband asked me if I would like a cup of tea, and when I said, yes, in a pretty cup, he took me literally. I love white, don’t you? It’s so crisp and clean looking. He also added a Wagon Wheel – I’m so glad that Tea Talk is only once a week, for I should be the size of a house if it were more often!

My Cup:~

I’m Feeling:~
A sense of relief knowing that we have received Home Help with the vacuuming and mopping each week. One week will be on a Wednesday and the following week will be on a Tuesday – the rest of the housework we can cope with, and it is a HUGE weight off my husband’s shoulders, too. Our heavenly Father knows what we have need of before we even ask.

On My Mind:~

• A very dear friend of ours had a skin cancer removed from his nose, and had to have a skin graft. He has had to give up smoking so that the skin graft will take, and I’m praying that the skin graft will take and that he’ll be able to kick the habit once and for all. He’s a delightful man, but there’s nothing of him. I really do feel that he would benefit from giving up smoking and being able to taste the food that he’s eating.
• Our new church building – praying that everything will move along without any problems, and that God will truly bless this step of faith on behalf of the church.
• My husband’s knee – the woodshed is now full, and we don’t have to worry about being cold this winter, praise God!
• These Bible verses are on my mind, as we are currently reading the Bible through chronologically in a year, and it is great that my daughter and I can keep one another on track with our Bible readings.

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up! Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10

I really enjoy Tea Talk each week, and love having you join me for a cuppa. Care to join, please visit Ruth at Celebrate Friendship to see the guidelines in her sidebar .

Praise You, Almighty Father

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6:8

Our heavenly Father, I do thank you and give You the praise, for:~

• Providing us with Home Help to help with the mopping and vacuuming while we so desperately need it.
• My husband – he has spent much time recently cutting firewood so that we won’t go cold this winter. The temperature today means that winter is on its way, and it won’t be long before we have to light the combustion fire.
• Our children, who have been a tremendous help in and around the home and our farm, helping with chores that my husband would normally do, not expecting anything in return, just happy to help.
• Friends - blogging friends and IRL friends in particular, who have taken up the mantle of prayer for us recently, and we have been hearing the answers to those prayers. Firstly, my back was finally diagnosed with having four disc bulges (one anterior and three posterior), and the physio is now working on repairing them. Then, we have been struggling with completing the housework each week, but now we have received an answer to that prayer in the way of Home Help – praise God!
• Farm-fresh goats’ milk – our goats are continuing to supply us with goats’ milk, enough for our cooking and for drinking, too.
• Our church, whose building is going ahead. We saw the plans yesterday, and it is very functional and beautiful.
• Balmy autumn weather – I know that it has to come to an end, soon, but I am relishing the time while the days are warm, sunny and the leaves are beginning to fall.
• Sending Your Son to die in our place, a substitutionary sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Through Him our relationship with You is restored, we have access through Him to You and He lives in my heart.

Jennifer, from My Chocolate ♥ hosts Praise each week, and for this I am extremely thankful – care to join, pop on over.

Praise for this Week

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:
knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
And hope maketh not ashamed;
because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us. Romans 5: 3-5

Praise You, Almighty Father:~

• That my blog page is up and functioning once again. I don’t remember praying for patience recently, but it has been well and truly tested during the last few days. Praise God that Stephen was able to fix it, and a big thank you, also to PSD2CSS for migrating the files across properly. I also praise God that there are good friends, such as Susan, who are willing to offer their help in fixing the problems.

• For friends, who make this world a much better place to live in, friends who build us up and encourage us to look inward at ourselves, to see what God sees.

• For my husband’s relatively pain-free knee – he has been able to cut many loads of firewood recently, so that we don’t go cold this winter.

• For our children – in particular, my son, who rode three kilometres to bring my husband home with the car, and the nebuliser during a severe asthma attack. I praise Him also for my daughter’s help in cutting and collecting firewood, for she shifts all of the loose sticks so that my husband doesn’t trip over.

• For our home, which is safe, warm and comfortable and is a refuge in the times of trial.

Psalm 62:8 tells us that we need to trust in God at all times,

that we need to pour out our heart before Him,

and that God is a refuge for us.

• For warm, autumn weather, enabling us to prepare for the cold winter ahead of us.

• For farm-fresh goats’ milk, which enables each one of us to have a regular intake of calcium ( I wonder why it’s not called goatcium, when it’s goats’ milk???), and enables us to make delicious home-made goats’ milk ice-cream.

• That we have homeschooling freedoms within Australia that many countries don’t. For instance, did you know that homeschooling is illegal in Germany and Brazil, and that Sweden seeks to introduce a law stating that the only way that you can homeschool there is under “exceptional circumstances“? Please continue praying for Dominic Johannson and the swift reuniting with his parents, Annie and Christer.

The HSLDA are currently looking for families to host persecuted homeschoolers, and while we have the room, we don’t have a vehicle capable of transporting extra people, and living out here, they would need a reliable vehicle. Does anyone want to take on this important role in helping the persecuted homeschoolers? If you do, please contact the HSLDA here.