September 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Building a life is a lot like building a home.
Where you build it, what you build it upon, makes all the difference.

Again we saw this week that nature is a force to be reckoned with, from tornado warnings that were issued recently in our own area to Hurricane Harvey that continues to reek havoc in Texas and throughout the South. Lives have been lost, homes destroyed, and property damaged. There will be a need to rebuild.

This is true of our lives as well—things happen, we suffer losses, we find that the things that once gave us security have been ripped away from us for one reason or another. Life is never the same.

I was encouraged when I heard a story this week on Christian radio. A woman was hiding in her closet in her home when a tornado not only swept the house away, but exploded the closet she was taking refuge in. She found herself flying through the air! She said, “I just kept telling myself, I’m alive, I’m alive.”

Later, when she and her husband were allowed to return to where their home once stood, the only thing left was the foundation. But there, in the middle of it, was a rain-soaked bible that was open to a Psalm that spoke about how God was the God of storms and destruction, but out of it He would build a new life. I don’t remember what Psalm it was, as I was driving and couldn’t write it down.

When the couple read the passage they said that even though they were deeply sadden at all the devastation, they found hope and excitement that God was doing a new thing in their lives, and they couldn’t wait to discover what that would be.

It’s clear that this couple built their lives on Christ, on the Rock, that no storm or tornado or hurricane can shake or destroy.

We need to built our lives on the Rock of our Salvation. One of my favorite parables in all of Scripture is from Matthew 7: 24-27:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!

Let us build our lives on Christ, and let us build this church on the Rock of Christ, on the mountain of our Lord and our God, that we might stand as a beacon of light in any darkness, that we might be joined together, immovable from one another, faithful in word and deed, faithful to love one another as Christ has loved us. Let us stay firm to help all those we can in every way we can, near and far.

We stand together,
Pastor Sherry