How’s your February thus far?  There’s something about this month we really, really love — it reminds the world of love, it’s sentimental, it’s short and reminds us winter is almost over, and it just has a sweet feel.  Not getting dressed up with the rest of the town competing for seats in a restaurant, but staying home in your pajamas and building a fort, fellowshipping with friends, ordering takeout, or watching a good movie — just take time to enjoy those you love❤️

If you’re in the mood for a romantic read, we suggest the Bible:  Boaz and Ruth, Jacob and Rachel, or Isaac and Rebekah are good ones.  If your heart and eyes are open, these couples and their stories will reward you far beyond the words on the page.

Share this with a friend who can’t wait to hear our preachers this weekend 🙂

Start the weekend off strong — grab a friend and head to Pony Farm Road Saturday night at 6:30, Sunday night at 6:00, or to any of our churches (message us and we will give you locations and times that might be near you).

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Some things will stay with you forever.

If we learned anything from Elder LaFleur all those years, it was this:

Natural thinking does not, and will never, turn things around.

When you’re in a catastrophe or crisis, you don’t want natural thinking around you.  When Elder was in the hospital, he had a lot of visitors.  A natural person comes by the hospital—they say things like their loved one died of that, they look at you somberly, or they say, I’m so sorry — as if you’re already dead.  When you’re battling a serious condition, natural people are depressing to listen to.

The natural man can do NOTHING for you.

A spiritual person comes along and says . . . we know what the doctors said, but GOD can.  He does the impossible.

Go There With Us

If you’ve been in a hospital room for any length of time, there’s an awareness in your subconscious of everything around you — sights, smells, feelings, and sounds.  Realizing everyone on the ward is quiet.  The hum of the machines.  Walking down the hall seeing someone rubbing a loved one’s arm . . .  the whispering.

Tears, crying.  The look on someone’s face.  No one is laughing or talking cheerfully — there is only the spirit of death and depression.

Everyone is going through hell here.  You need someone to come along and say . . . have you heard that’s there’s nothing too hard for the Lord?

Have you heard that He heals?  That He’s the redeemer?

Have you heard that God is a wonderful God?

Elder surrounded himself with ministers and spiritual people.  You don’t need someone to tell you what you’re already feeling, battling, or holding at bay in your own thinking.

Tell me something GOOD.

We’re serving the God who still does things.

He Decided That One Thing He Would Do

Elder chose ONE thing in his life that would be first and receive his energy and attention above all else — serving Jesus.  He didn’t try to do a hundred things.  That’s why he reached his potential.  And in serving God, he stuck to his one calling.  That’s why he was successful.

Hope for Our Conditions

Elder knew it took the word, God, and spiritual fellowship to shift your thoughts and life to a new direction.  God reverses circumstances—turns negative to positive, and just like in Zephaniah 3, He does them when it’s at the end of everything we’ve tried.  He turns it around right before our eyes:

“At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.”

The Children Are All Coming Home

Death, a broken relationship, a broken life.  He can take the thing that is broken and turn it around, even the thing you are most sorrowful about.

Look what He did in Jeremiah 31, making a new covenant after Israel broke it.  He was going to forgive all their iniquities and every single one would know Him.  No more sour grapes of children paying for their parents’ sins.  It was a new day.  God was going to lead them home.  Even Rachel (symbolically) could be heard crying for her lost children, and God comforting her telling her there was hope:  the children are all coming home.  All those who had been wandering were now coming home, and the people were filled with energy and joy (even before their morning Starbucks).

“Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.  Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.”

Sow Forgiveness, Mercy, and Belief and Stick Around for the Harvest

If you’re battling a situation that looks hopeless, put Jeremiah 31:11 in your head and remember what God did for Jacob—after he changed.

“For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.”

If You Remember Anything About Elder’s Legacy, Remember This: 

He was tenacious in holding on to the truth but shared his knowledge with those who were hungry . . . to the point NOTHING, including sickness, ever stopped him from teaching or witnessing.  He championed this church to believe we are winners and we have what it takes to escape the oppression of our carnal thinking.

He reminded us thousands of times — just as God brought deliverance in Jeremiah 31 and to so many before us — HE’LL DO IT AGAIN.