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Pastor’s Paragraphs: September 15, 2017

When life is going well we tend to take it for granted.  We begin to think that is the way it will always be and focus more and more on ourselves.  Then on a larger scale, events like the hurricanes Harvey and Irma come along.  If it is not from nature, sometimes it is from events closer to home like unexpected illness, accidents or other tragedies which reminds us we live in a fallen world.  We come face to face with not only our own suffering but that of others.  Nothing is as stable or permanent as it seems.  In fact, we even have to consider that any of us is only a breath away from eternity.

Certainly the moving scenes we have witnessed in the past months in sister states or even nearer, heighten our awareness that we could be in the same situation tomorrow from slightly different causes and calls us to action.  At this point for those in distant disaster settings, in addition to prayer, the best thing we can do is send aid through financial gifts.  Perhaps later, there will be other opportunities.  Please be reminded the need is tremendous.  You can give an offering for disaster relief through the church which will go directly to Southern Baptist relief efforts.  All money received goes toward aid.  None is taken out for administration.  I urge you to make a gift this week if you have not done so or add to what you have previously given.

Closer to home, join me in thanking all our folks who did an outstanding job on SERVE DAY.  We were blessed with an abundance of helpers on Saturday morning such that every project was able to be done.  This was the broadest effort from clothing donations, to relief packets, to ministry center refurbishing, to playground restoration which I ever remember our church undertaking.  Take note of some of the pictures inside this mail out.  Thank you SERVE TEAM leadership and everyone who had a part in the day.

I hope you will be present Sunday morning as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and I continue the messages from Philippians.  Then on Sunday evening we have the privilege of ordaining five new Deacons.  It will be an exciting and meaningful day of 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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