Pastor's Ponderings

Time flies when you are having fun –and even when you aren’t! It’s hard to believe that we have already begun the Lenten season (the six weeks leading up to Easter). I hope you are enjoying our all- church Lenten study, A Disciple’s Heart. Our doctors all want us to have at least an annual check-up on our physical health. Lent is a good time for a ‘Spiritual check-up’ each year. The purpose of a spiritual check-up is not to discover where we need a scolding, but where we need refreshing. God is more interested in forgiving and restoring than He is in inducing guilt and shame. I don’t know where we human beings got off track on that. God wants to use this time to refresh our faith; to renew our spiritual life and get us ready to receive the resurrection good news: because Jesus has defeated sin and death, we can, too! “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone; because I know He holds the future and life is worth the living just because He lives,” is the way the Gaithers put it in their song. 

As you find your faith in the love of the risen Christ refreshed, may you grow more confident in knowing that God is with you through whatever you are going through right now. May you feel the comfort of His presence and the sheer joy of Christian hope! May God’s Holy Spirit give you the daily gift of His peace that passes the world’s understanding.

In Jesus’ Service,

Pastor Jeff Symonds