Issue 1520 – Road Trip – Augst 9, 2024
Yesterday, we were blessed to spend the day with good friends visiting from Edmonton. After picking them up, we headed to the Rusty Wagon (https://www.facebook.com/people/Rusty-Wagon/100028611086885/) in Lynden, Washington. As always, the food and service were great. The Western atmosphere is fun and quirky.
We popped over to Birch Bay and spent the afternoon on the beach. Supper was at the Beach House. The food was excellent, with plenty of it and service. was friendly
The tide was beginning to come back in as we waded and played on the beach. One of the delights was finding live sand dollars and the familiar exoskeletons of dead ones.
When alive, a sand dollar (Dendraster excentricus) is covered by densely packed, short, and slender spikes. Unlike its sea urchin relatives, sand dollars have a velvety covering, and the entire surface is covered by skin.
Sand dollars feed by injecting sand, eating the microscopic life on each grain, and ejecting the waste.
One of the fascinating facts about sand dollars is that they live in the community. Tiny sand dollar larvae wash about the sea for weeks, eventually sensing a colony of their relatives and settling in. The feeding urchins disturb the sand and reduce the number of tanaids, a tube-dwelling, shrimp-like crustacean that feeds on sand dollar larvae.
Christians, too, are called to live in community. Our communities provide a relatively safe haven from the dangers of the world. Like the urchin sand dollars, we are surrounded by a larger world.
Unlike the urchins, we are called to go out into that world and bring hope and change. In some ways, our communities (local assemblies) should be recognized as safe places from the larger world and draw in the Holy Spirit’s calling.
Our lives and witness testify to the existence of that safe place. Of course, our safety isn’t fueled by the community; instead, the Spirit and Word fuel it so people can find Christ and grow in Him.
Without the Spirit, our little communities have nothing to offer that any other community might have. We might be loving and caring, but so can any social group. We might have sound doctrine, but without the Spirit, it is simply dead beliefs or empty legalism.
Our assemblies out to be Christ-centered, Word-based, and Holy Spirit-powered. We call it gospel-centered. Paul described it this way,
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15:1-3
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35
Let us hold onto those truths in our community and our daily journeys in the larger world. May the world find us to be genuinely a gospel-centered and safe place to find the Lord.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
Never let the enemy tell you that you are worthless or insignificant. Your value in God’s eyes is so great that it was worth dying for. You are a blessing to the world. You are so precious to God that his plan for heaven will not be complete without you.
__________________________________________
Please share this post with friends and your circle of influence. Also, feel free to comment.
Did you know that we have an email version? It has the same great content but in a different format.
Subscribe today: https://mailchi.mp/f27bbeb09c22/gleanings-1
___________________________________________
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV)