Stephen spoke tonight on God’s lavish love, using a scone to illustrate his points!

God’s love is limitless, intense, everlasting and personal (John 3:16). God’s love is such that He sent His only Son to save us and promises to make His dwelling in us. (Jn 14:23) Just as when we move into a new house, we take over the whole place, so God wants to move into every part of our lives. His love is beyond our knowledge and understanding (Eph 3:19); it is a love which will last beyond the grave (Rom 8:39), but so often, we struggle to try to fathom this love instead of simply receiving it as dearly loved children. (Eph 5:1, 1 Jn 2:28-29).

Our lives, on their own, can be rather like a scone: dry, with some flavour, but lacking true love.

God wants to lavish His love on our lives (1 Jn 3:1-2) – rather like lavishly adding jam and clotted cream to the scone make it taste much nicer!

God’s generosity, grace and love are poured out onto our lives with no sense of stinginess or holding back (see Eph 1:5-10). So often, however, we find it hard to accept that we are ‘dear children’; we want to be adults and don’t relish the thought of accepting God’s love with child-like faith. If we want our lives to overflow with love and the many gifts God gives, we have to become as little children, however, and receive God’s gifts with open arms.

We had a birthday to celebrate this morning at Cherry Tree Court:

Some people seem to be born worriers, worrying even when things are going well that this period won’t last! We often torment ourselves with tortured visions of what might go wrong in our lives and frequently find ourselves in an almost permanent state of anxiety and worry which robs us of peace.

Mark looked at some of the Biblical ways of dealing with anxiety and worry this morning. Phil 4:6-7 tells us not to be anxious about anything, showing that when we pray about our worries, thanking God for the fact that He is in control, He gives us overwhelming peace which is beyond our rational understanding. We need never despair, no matter how hard our circumstances, because we know we serve a God who is able to do something about our circumstances.

1 Pet 5:7 urges us to cast, or throw, all our troubles onto God. We are urged to discard worry, to throw it far away (as when a fisherman casts a net vigorously into the water.) We have to humble ourselves before God, handing our lives over to Him, and refusing to pick up our worries again once we’ve let go of them. We can do this because a) we know God cares about us as a loving Father and b) He will do the caring for us, in our place.

Deut 31:8 reminds us that God goes before and behind us and will never leave us or forsake us. This means we don’t have to be afraid or dismayed, because His presence makes all the difference.

Ps 23 shows us we can have confidence in God at all times and because of our confidence in His ability, we do not have to be afraid, even when we are at death’s door. Though we may have trouble in this life, God gives us a table of blessings from which to eat, and therefore we can be sure worry doesn’t have to have the last word!

I was very struck by an interview with Joni Eareckson Tada in ‘Christianity Today’ recently. Joni was injured in a diving accident when she was 17 and the interview, giving 50 years later, is entitled ‘After 50 years in a wheelchair, I still walk with Jesus.’ You can read the article here.

Joni has perhaps more experience of suffering than most of us (she has also faced stage 3 breast cancer and struggles with chronic pain on a daily basis), but the joy and peace she radiates are inspirations to us. I was particularly struck by a quotation from William Law which she says helped her in the tensions between accepting suffering that may come into our lives and seeking healing or relief from God:

“Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment, every trial, every uneasiness, every darkness and desolation with both your hands, as a blessed opportunity … of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with your Savior. Look at no outward or inward trouble in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and you will find that the day of your distress will become the blessed day of your (spiritual) prosperity.”

Dying to self is not easy, but we can be sure that God will not test us beyond our limits (1 Cor 10:13) and that He is able to work in all things for our good. Joni helps us to see this truth lived out. May we find God’s grace to do the same.

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Bob finished work on the doors under the stage yesterday.

These are the fastenings:

There’s a bolt on the inside for added strength:

The finished job:

Our thanks to Bob for his professional work and good humour!

We had our very own big fish (affectionately known as Winston the Whale, or, more informally, ‘Slob’) to feature in a game where we tried to flick plastic frogs into his mouth:

Prizes included a map of the world (Jonah would have found this useful!), a fidget spinner (useful if you’re in the belly of a fish for 3 days and nights) and frog games.

We also learned a new song about ‘Jonah, the Moaner’ which urges us not to be like Jonah but to go God’s way and do what He says immediately!