Jesus often told stories to make a point. Theses are called parables, you can find them in the Gospels. He told the parables to the multitude, but he would tell the true meaning to the ones closest to him. And we are so blessed to have both in our bible. Read through the themand see how much God really loves us.
Have you ever watched a movie in rewind? Things float up into hands, food appeared, and everyone walk backwards. It’s fun to watch. So let’s go backwards from last week, the trial, what happened before that.
We go to garden and watch what happened before the trial. There was a special time of prayer for Jesus and his closest disciples now down to 11. It was late, after a very long day, and a very important meal for all concerned. Jesus asked his friends to pray. No one knows how long they were in the garden, but we do know they fell asleep while praying and waiting for Jesus to come back from his special prayer time.
But before that, Jesus and his disciples had a special dinner, there last together . This is the time Jesus once again told his disciples that he was going away. It was hard for them to understand, going to a place they couldn’t go? They have followed Jesus everywhere for 3 years. How where they going to go on without Jesus? So what happens now…or next, or before that.
When you read a book, do you start at the beginning or the end. If you are like most people, you start at the beginning because the book would not make any sense if you read the last page first. If it was a mystery book, you would know the solution before you knew the problem.
For the next few weeks, we are go be talking about the life of Christ. The difference is that we will be starting at the “end” of the story and going backward. We will finish the series around Christmas when we will be having a birthday party for Jesus.
Today was about Jesus rising from the dead and dying on the cross (yes, I know that is backward). We talked about how Jesus rose from the dead to be in Heaven with His father. The reason he died was for our sins. Since He was perfect, Jesus did not have to die … oops, we’ll talk about that in a few weeks….
Life is full of ups and downs and sometimes it bucks us like a bull. We are given the lifeline of Jesus to hold on to when life gets hard. When we do fall off, there are Christians around us to be our “rodeo clowns”, they help us back up. they..
love -1 john 3:16, bear with - Romans 15:1, accept -Romans 14:1, restore - Galatians 6:1, pray for - 1 John 5:16, and forgive - Colossians 3:13
Teresa Stanwix
The second Sunday of Rodeo Roundup was great.
Our feature event was barrell racing. In this event, a rider tries to go around 3 barrels as fast as possible without touching the barrels. Even though the rider is there, the horse is very important. Sometimes the horse has a mind of its own and takes control.
We face many temptations in our lives and the only way we can resist temptation is with the help of Jesus. We need him in our heart to help and guide us.
This was the first Sunday of our October Rodeo Roundup.
Our feature event this week was the wild horse race. This is an event where a team of 3 cowboys attempt to saddle a wild horse and on of them has to ride it across the arena. Since the horses are wild and don’t really want to be saddled, the event gets kind of wild. The horses are often very unpredictable.
Our lifes can be like that wild horse race. Some days may be great, while others can be really rough. The only way to get through the tough times of our lives is with Jesus in our heart.
John 14:6 says: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
In John 6:46-49, Jesus tells the story of a wise man who built his house on a deep foundation in the rocks. When the storms came, the house stood still. There was also a foolish man who built his house without a foundation. When the storms came, his house was washed away.
The house Jesus was talking about was us and the storms are things that will happen in our life that are difficult. If our life has been built on a solid foundation, we will be able to stand the storms. The foundation is Jesus. The more we know about Jesus and trust in Him, the stronger our foundation will be.
The foundation is built by reading the Bible, listening to those who teach us at church, and praying.
You never know when the storm will come, so you need to start now at building the foundation.
In John 2:13-16, we read the story of Jesus chasing people out of the temple that were selling things. He was upset that people were doing things in His father’s house that was not proper.
I wonder if Jesus ever gets upset about some things we do in church. Would we act different in church if He was standing next to us?
He really is standing next to us at church and everywhere else. We need to remember that the church is God’s house and think about how He expects us to behave there.
Those of you that are reading through the New Testament with us will have started reading the book of Acts this week.
The book of Acts is filled with bold preaching, stories of bravery, and of courage. The book tells of how the early apostles spread the word of Jesus to others. Some of the apostles were thrown in prison and shipwrecked. Others were stoned or chased out of towns. Even with all these problems, they still kept working to spread the Gospel.
If somebody wrote a book about your life and actions, how would it go? Would the book show that you were brave? Would it show that you were honest? Would it say that you were a Christian?
You may never have a book written about your life, but others are watching you everyday. They are “writing about you” in their mind. Make sure what they are writing is good!
The lesson for 9/7 was “walk like a Christian”. We will post the details of it later. For now, check the book of Ephesians.