FReeper Canteen ~ Sunday Chapel ~ BACK TO SCHOOL ~ 13 August 2017

Take them to church by all means, but also show them even at home how to live the church life.

God is a God of great generosity. Children can sometimes be very petty. It’s something that shouldn’t surprise any parent or cause them to fly off the handle — we’re all fallen and all need to be picked up off the spiritual pratfall that humanity took in the Garden. Patience and love, as well as firm correction where needed (and yet not harsher than necessary, and all aimed towards restoring and improving a positive note) will make the parents an arm of God to teach them what is good and where goodness comes from. When children understand that God is their defense from evil, they will begin loving the Lord as He deserves and in turn live out His courage.

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From Fear to Faith

August 13, 2017

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Habakkuk 3:19

The doctor’s words landed in her heart with a thud. It was cancer. Her world stopped as she thought of her husband and children. They had prayed diligently, hoping for a different outcome. What would they do? With tears streaming down her face, she said softly, “God, this is beyond our control. Please be our strength.”

What do we do when the prognosis is devastating, when our circumstances are beyond our control? Where do we turn when the outlook seems hopeless?

The prophet Habakkuk’s situation was out of his control, and the fear that he felt terrified him. The coming judgment would be catastrophic (Hab. 3:16–17). Yet, in the midst of the impending chaos, Habakkuk made a choice to live by his faith (2:4) and rejoice in God (3:18). He did not place his confidence and faith in his circumstances, ability, or resources, but in the goodness and greatness of God. His trust in God compelled him to proclaim: “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (v. 19).

When we are faced with difficult circumstances—sickness, family crisis, financial trouble—we, too, have only to place our faith and trust in God. He is with us in everything we face.

Dear God, I thank You that I can always turn to You. When I am faced with the difficulties of life, I can put my trust in You. Thank you that You are my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1

When faced with difficult circumstances we can trust God to be our strength.

INSIGHT:

The prophet Habakkuk gives us an inspiring example of someone who argued with God yet came to the point of trusting Him regardless of what happened. He came to believe that God would eventually unmask the idols of the world (literally “nothings”). Habakkuk could not see that the Creator was going to bring judgment against the idolatrous violence in Israel and Babylon. He could not know how God’s Son would ultimately come in a human body to bear the consequence of the world’s rebellion and loss of understanding.

How does the story of Habakkuk encourage you as you face your own challenges of faith? Mart DeHaan

Please join us for Sunday Chapel ~ BACK TO SCHOOL, and Liberty

Lt. Charles F. Suver, CHC, USN, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division
"Mass at Iwo Jima"

Please stop in and say a prayer of protection for the military.
Prayers from all denominations are needed.

Sunday Liberty starts after the Guest Military Chaplain's Service!

Hai, Here. (((HUGS)))

Amen

Hi everybody!

(((HUGS)))

Habakkuk postdated Isaiah about 300 years, and would have known about Isaiah 53, whose specifics weren’t to be revealed until the life and sacrifice of Jesus. But that part of Isaiah was pregnant with intrigue and fascinating to the early rabbis. It was not like its treatment in modern Jewish philosophy, where anything that looks like Christianity has been systematically pushed out of mind. So Habakkuk had ample reason to know something strange (to the status quo) and exciting was coming.

Good evening, HiTech, and a Blessed Lord’s Day to you and yours.

Hope your weekend is going well.

Dear God:
I ask that no Airman, Coast Guardsman,
Marine, Sailor, Soldier, Reservist, National Guardsman, or Merchant Marine
feel alone or forgotten.

O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is loving kindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
And He will redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

Psalm 130:7 & 8

Prayers for all in the wake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0wKQHI8fvw

Well, it is, through trials and tests and mercies and gifts of the Lord.

He is worthy of all praise for it and bit by bit, my capability of issuing that praise is growing. It’s a strange, supernatural life to one, like myself, who had so long been preoccupied with the world’s way of doing things.

God has a strange way of arguing, by blessing us strategically when we’ve been selling Him short.

I’ve been in discussions with a sister-in-law for years by email and she’s starting to visibly pick up the brightness of the Lord’s blessing. I’ve warned about the dangers of the devil and hell, but tried to refocus on the power of God at the end of such discourses. And along the way, learned better and better ways to express it. Perhaps even my brother, who has been a private person and shown few signs of inclination to be a believer, is starting to see this light. But perhaps like me, he was simply a great doubter. Doubt isn’t the unforgivable sin. God will have mercy on those who doubt in ignorance and unbelief, till they doubt no more.