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Pastor’s Paragraphs: September 1, 2017

Join me in congratulating those who were elected this past Sunday to serve on our Pastor Search Committee.  You should lift them up in prayer each day in view of the challenge before them.  We should also add that the church elected an outstanding group who will follow the Lord’s leading and in His time bring to us the next Pastor/Shepherd for our church family.  Unless a person has served before, few appreciate the demands of this task.  I also want to mention others on the ballot who were not elected to serve.  Any of those could have served well and all were willing to give their energy, time and prayer to the future direction of our church.   We were blessed with wonderful choices.

Over the past few days, all of us have been seeing the images and hearing the voices of people impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas.  We have witnessed suffering due to storms through loss of homes and property on a scale few have ever seen.  As I write this article the suffering is continuing to grow.  I am sure many of you would like to help.  The first thing to do is to pray for the people in need and for those assisting and ministering to them.  There are also great financial needs helping the relief efforts.

You can make a financial gift to hurricane relief efforts through our church.   Any gifts we receive will be sent directly to Southern Baptist disaster relief ministries which are active in those areas affected.  Most importantly, you will want to know that 100 percent of donations will be used to help those affected by the hurricane.

Thanks to Keith Pate and the Music Ministry of our church for the excellent service Sunday evening.  It was a meaningful time of worship as we were led by a number of those from our church family in the Sounds of EHBC service.

If you are not away, let me urge you to join us Sunday morning for Bible study and worship.

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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