Monday Morning Mail, 19th November 2012

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Loving God | Loving Each Other | Loving our Community

Good Morning!

Yesterday morning, we were looking at Colossians 3:1-14ish and thinking about how God has given us the "new shoes" of being free to love each other and knowing that we are God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved to replace the smelly old shoes of feeling that we have to defend ourselves and make our own lives significant.

One thing that really came out in chatting to folks afterwards is that it can be really helpful when we get angry (for example) to use that as a way of seeing where in our lives we still feel that we need to defend ourselves, and to spend the time praying in the glorious truths that God is for us and not against us.

A really helpful thing I heard last week is that God often uses fear the same way. When we are afraid (or anxious, or concerned, or stressed, or any of the other words we use instead of afraid), it is God calling us to put our trust in him on that issue, to bring it to him in prayer and to grow in our faith and our joy from that experience of trusting him.

If you missed yesterday morning's sermon, you can always catch up on the church website (may need to wait a week or so). Richard, Chris, Eddy and the team do a great job of recording the sermons and then putting them online, and I've heard that people find it really helpful to be able to listen to sermons that they've missed, especially when we're working through a book like Colossians.

In the News...

This week, the General Synod of the Church of England (kind of like our parliament) is meeting for what may well be the big final vote on Women Bishops. I know there are strong feelings on both sides – I've got friends campaigning both ways, but please pray particularly that there would be an outbreak of love on General Synod, that people would care more about listening to God, loving God and loving each other than they would about their own party line or getting their own way.

Having disagreements like this is such a good opportunity to show how much we love each other, and so often we squander it so badly.

In other news, there will be a Church Prayer Meeting on Tuesday at 8pm in the Church Lounge. Please also be praying for Lizzie Peto and her fiancé Ben as they prepare to get married at St Jude's on Saturday!

May God bless you as you seek to follow him this week!

John



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