Charles Counts is having leg treatments and is scheduled for a heart procedure on April 4th .
Florene Griffin is home and recovering.
Monte Randolph has finished treatments and is awaiting a PET scan.
Cathy Painter (Wolfe City) is doing well and her niece is back to work.
Kathy Hill is recovering at Jeanie’s home.
Barry Del Monte’s cancer is reported to be gone.
Rebecca Van Deren’s spinal tap (to check for pressure on her optic nerves) has been postponed.
Nonie Tucker had hip surgery March 1st. She is home and doing well.
Norma Garza (Walter’s neighbor) has bad back pain.
Ronald Hickerson will have surgery to remove melanoma on his shoulder.
Ben Harrington (diabetes complications), Don Hickerson (arterial problems), Tabitha Griffin (cancer), Billie Bradford (in nursing home), Betty Clark (in remission from cancer), Les Hamel (weekly transfusions, stress), Gary Hickerson (disks fused), Beryl Miller (macular degeneration), & Alex Miller (spiritual issues).
Serving in the military: Tyler Davies, Josh Van Deren, Kirklynn Hance and Kirk Johnson in the USA. Cody Blomstedt is in Korea.
Mens business meeting tonight, Sunday March 10th , after evening service.
All men are invited and encouraged to attend.
Our sympathy goes out to the family of Margaret Harden at her passing.
(Gary Yowell’s aunt).
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
James 5:16 (KJV)
Pantry Item: toothbrushes - or other non-perishable items.
Men Serving Next Week March 17, 2019
Morning Prayers Walter McMillen, Don Harrington
Evening Prayers Jerry Harris, Kerry King
Scripture Greg Counts
A Gift From the Scrap Pile
Darrow was a clever man, and he was always coming up with notions that made people laugh. Darrow knew how powerfully his own attitude affected his wife. His temperament was the color his wife used to paint her mood. If he came home weary and irritable, her spirits fell, and her smile vanished. On the other hand, if she heard him whistling a merry tune as he climbed the many flights of stairs up to their tiny rooms, she would fling open the door and scamper out to the railing to lean over and smile at him as he wound his way up the staircase. They fed on the gift of each other's joy.
In his younger years, Darrow had enjoyed happy family vacations in nearby Atlantic City, and he drew on those memories to keep his spirits high. He developed a little game on a square piece of cardboard. Around the edges he drew a series of "properties" named after the streets and familiar places he had visited during those pleasant childhood summers. He carved little houses and hotels out of scraps of wood, and as he and his young wife played the game each evening, they pretended to be rich, buying and selling property and "building" homes and hotels like extravagant tycoons. On those long, dark evenings, that impoverished apartment was filled with the sound of laughter.
Charles Darrow didn't set out to become a millionaire when he developed "Monopoly", a game that was later marketed around the world by Parker Brothers, but that's what happened. The little gift he developed from scraps of cardboard and tiny pieces of wood he had obtained from a scrap pile was simply a way to keep his wife's spirits up during her Depression-era pregnancy; ultimately, that gift came back to him as bountiful riches.
Monopoly is still being sold by the thousands more than 70 years later. Every time I think of those little green houses and red hotels, the unusual game pieces, and those "get out of jail free" cards that made us all race around the board to pass "Go" and collect $200, I see an example of shared joy. Isn't that our whole purpose here on earth? To share the joy of knowing Christ and the salvation that comes only through Him? Let's make sure that is what people are seeing when they look at our lives. After all, we don't have a "Monopoly" on salvation. It's for EVERYONE!!
For His Cause,
Tim Woodward
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Living With What We Have
Jeremy Hodges
Part of this is based in the modern naturalism movement that says we are all just evolved animals and are motivated by various instincts and impulses with no real moral compass. Another influence is the Calvinist doctrine that pervades much of the religious world that claims that all humans are born with an innate “sin nature” that is part of the curse of Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden.
In either case, it is not only an ignorance of the fact that all humans are not mere animals, and we bear the “image of God” in us (Genesis 1:26-27; 9:6; James 3:9-10), but it is a patent refusal to heed the expectations God has communicated in His word (Deuteronomy 6:25; I John 3:23). We must call sin what it always is, and that is a violation of God’s will, and a failure to live as He has designed us to live.
One particular shade of this slander that is is common comes in the form of making discontentedness and thanklessness natural. “People always want what they can’t have.” With this aphorism, we not only undermine the life that God has called people to live, we often blame God for our failure. Even the sin in the garden was not really the fault of the first people, because God forbade eating from the tree, and was thus responsible for their disobedience. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was God who provided “every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food” and told the man, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely” with only one exception. (Genesis 2:9-16) It was not until the influence of the serpent did either of the people consider disobedience. (Genesis 3:1-13) Therefore, it was the deceit of Satan that caused sin, not human nature.
The repeated direction of scripture is to avoid coveting (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21; 7:25; Joshua 6:18; 7:21; Micah 2:2; Mark 7:22; Acts 20:33; Romans 7:7-8; 13:9; I Corinthians 5:10-11; 6:10; Ephesians 5:5), envying (Proverbs 3:31; 23:17; Romans 1:29; Galatians 5:21, 26; I Timothy 6:4; Titus 3:3; I Peter 2:1), and being greedy (Numbers 11:4, 34; Psalm 10:3; Proverbs 11:6; Luke 12:15; Ephesians 4:19; 5:3; Colossians 3:5; II Peter 2:3, 14) so that we do not violate God’s command, and will.
Let us instead be thankful for what God has given us in contentedness (Philippians 4:11; I Timothy 6:6; Hebrews 13:5), including a life that is above what “people always” do. This is not only possible, but it is better for us, and provides a graceful way of living. God knows what is best for His people, and His commands help us to attain what we all truly need.
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Answer to last weeks question!
This sister of a Hebrew leader was herself a prophetess. For a time she was afflicted with leprosy. - Miriam (Exodus 15:20 – Numbers 12:10)
Trivia Question
This man who traveled to Antioch with Paul, Silas, and Barnabas, was considered a prophet.