Blessings and thank you for joining us for our August monthly blog.
Some people are now back into their routines, others still in total or partial shielding. I would like to consider what we have learned - and how we will move forward from today.
Parents often give children time out, perhaps on the naughty step to consider their actions and weigh up the consequences of them, in the hope that they will make better decisions going forward.
After about 5 minutes they are bored generally! They don’t really want to change at all do they? They just want their freedom again.
Sometimes they will even say they are sorry - but they don’t always mean it. They just want off that step - to go back to the same old things!
During lockdown whether you are aware of it or not - God has been speaking to the whole world. As restrictions ease. What will you do?
As parents what happens when that child does not respond to five minutes time out? The next step for many is ten or fifteen. In other words the punishment and thinking time increases.
Will we learn the lessons and walk with God? Or will we go straight back to what we were doing before? I hope not.
Deuteronomy 30: 5 - 20 tells us:
See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;
I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them
Let us all be sure going forward that we learn from this experience. That our love for God deepens. That we choose life and blessing. That Christ is our salvation. He promises to receive all who come to Him and ask for forgiveness and instruction.
It’s time to move forward. Let us ensure we do it God’s way empowered by His Holy Spirit.
Love from all @GCF