Worship Service

We worshiped this Sunday with the mother church.  Luiz and family had never attended this church before, only the one in their village, the sister church.  So this was new to all of us.  This was a first time and a very special time.  Luiz had on his Jeremiah 29:11 bracelet and little Cindi was all dressed up beautiful as ever.  The team members along with Luiz helped set out more chairs for worship.  People kept coming and kept coming in as the sanctuary began to fill up.  Pastor Jose Luiz was grateful to have us all worshiping together this amazing Sunday morning in Nacaome.

Pastor Jose Luiz introduced the Perez family to their church and then introduced the North American team.  There was Psalm 100 read by Natalie.  The church then asked for specials.

A young lady named Katie, age 10 did a solo called "Jesus Was Walking" and a young man named Daniel age 8 also did a solo called "Joy".  The North American team came forward and sang "Open the Eyes to My Heart Lord in English and in Spanish.  The offering was collected after the specials.  I think it is beautiful how they include the children of the church into the worship service.  How they learn early on how to lead in worship and sing unto the Lord.  

Mike came forward to share in God's Word a most profound message with the help of our Meida.  His scripture came out of Mark 12:28-31.  As I study God's Word and the Great Commandment is the way we should live out our lives.  We are to love God first and others unselfishly.  Personally at this moment sitting here in this church it is so easy to love God first and love each other sitting around us.  We are singing hymns of praise unto God, serving each other through this week.  This is easy in this building, there is no temptations.  It is so easy to love each other right now.  But what about tomorrow when we are not sitting in this church among fellow believers.  What about the difficult times when we look different from each other because of our walk with the Lord.  Loving our neighbor is a challenge.  Where does that leave us?  Well without Jesus in our lives, our sin separates us from God.  God does not want separation from us.  He wants us totally. Out of John 3:17 it states we should confess our sins, asking forgiveness of our sins and repent of our sins.  The truth of the Christian faith is God sent His Son Jesus to us for us to be in a relationship with HIM.  We need to restore our relationship with God.  God sent Jesus a sinless life for our sins.  He hung on the Cross for our sins.  He was buried and arose on the third day to save us from our sins.  My mistakes and your mistakes have been erased if you believe Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. Through Jesus God gave us a way to a relationship with Him.

How did Jesus treat his disciple Peter?  Well how did Peter treat Jesus?  Peter denied Christ three times.  In the moment Peter did not know Jesus or claim Him as his Savior.  Life became hard for Peter when he had to claim Jesus as his Savior.  Peter had the opportunity to share his love for Jesus but stumbled and sinned against Jesus. Interestingly Peter did not hear about Jesus from someone else.  Peter walked daily with Jesus but yet stilled denied knowing who Jesus was. Peter watched Jesus heal the crippled to walk, the blind to see and the sick Jesus healed. Peter held the basket of fish and bread when Jesus fed the 5000 and yet Peter still denied knowing Jesus. Mark 14:66-72 Peter was confronted with his sins.  He knew his mistakes and he broke down and wept.  Peter wept bitterly.  I can see Peter falling on his knees crying out to God to please forgive him of his sin of not claiming to know Jesus. Peter felt his relationship with God was over.  But that is not the God we serve.  In Romans 8:38-39 it says neither life or death could separate us from the love of Jesus Christ.  Jesus loves us to much to leave us weeping bitterly.  He forgives us if we only confess our sins.

In Mark 16:1, 6 angel conversation with the women not to be alarmed.  This was the starting place for their mission to share Jesus throughout the world.  It was not the Cross but the empty tomb. The angel told them to go tell the disciples, especially Peter, Jesus is alive.  Why Peter?  This was a clear message to Peter, he was still God's.  God a plan for Peter's life.  It would have been so easy for Peter to say, "I am not good enough", "I am not a good disciple anymore" But this was not the message to Peter from Jesus.  Jesus wanted Peter to show up in His place and go tell others about this miraculous event, His Resurrection. 

In John 21:15-17  Jesus asked Peter three times "Do you love me, Peter?"  Peter answered, "Yes I love you, Jesus". But in order to truly love Jesus Peter had to completely change his life and give his entire life to Jesus. Peter's life changed radically.  Peter was saved by God's grace. Just like Peter we will stumble and fall, we will deny Jesus probably more than three times, but praise God Jesus will call us back to HIM.

Three things for us to know about living our lives for Jesus:

1. God's grace available to all of us.  All we need to do is ask forgiveness of our sin, repent of our sin.

2. God never ending gift of grace. If we truly love Jesus we will not want to sin. We honor God with our lives.

3. Someone in our lives, family, neighbor, co-worker, someone needs to about that grace Jesus.  Share Jesus with them today!!!