Friday, September 12, 2025

Happy Friday, my Friends! As we prepare to build a few beds tomorrow... Here are some words for us from 1 Chronicles...
 
              Then David said to God, "I have sinned greatly by taking this census. Please forgive my guilt for doing this foolish thing."   (1 Chronicles 21: 8  NLT)
 
Have the mistakes you've made in the past ever left you paralyzed in the present? Perhaps you truly want to move forward in your relationship with God, but memories of failure freeze up your legs, leaving you stuck in a place of spiritual stagnation. "What if it happens again?" you wonder. "How could God forgive --- let alone use --- such a broken mess as me?" 
   
But as David's plea in today's verse illustrates, the process of strengthening your faith never starts with perfection. It's precisely because we're broken, fallen masses that we have room to grow in the first place. 
   
David wasn't content to let his sin derail the well-being of his nation. He knew that in order to move forward, he needed to dig up the ugly, rotten transgressions he'd buried in his past and lay them at God's feet, begging for forgiveness. And even though his mistakes had physical consequences, as seen in the following passage, God was willing to ultimately forgive his error, allowing David to move into the future as a wiser man.  
   
Are you stewing in your past mistakes, or are you handing them to God so that God can repurpose them for good?    
 
                 Forgive me, God, for stepping out of line. Help me learn from this misstep so that I can walk Your path to a better tomorrow. Amen.  
 
+++ We gather for worship on Sunday at 8:30 and 10:00am. This week we will listen as Jesus tries to teach the Pharisees using a few parables about how God loves and cares for the lost. Have you ever been or felt lost? How did God find you? Or did you find God? We will look at how that happens on Sunday. Our Facebook "live-stream" starts at 10:00am on the church's Facebook page and, of course, after worship is completed we'll upload the recorded worship to our YouTube channel, as well. Please plan to join us for worship on Sunday. 

+++ Following the 10:00am worship this Sunday we'll gather folks planning on becoming members of Immanuel with the coffee in the church Nursery. If you are thinking about membership grab a cup of good coffee, a wonderful homemade treat from Marilyn and join me in the Nursery Room right next door to the Fireside Room!  

+++ TOMORROW is our Sleep In Heavenly Peace Bed Build in the parking lot. I hope you have signed up on the S.H.P. website through Shelley Dawson Smith and will be joining us for this exciting work tomorrow morning! 

+++ And don't forget to sign up for the upcoming Dinner and a Movie night on September 26th! "A Man Called Otto" is being watched and discussed and we hope you'll be here with us that night! But you do need to sign up please!  
 
Make this day a great day and use your past mistakes to do great things for God today!
Pastor Jack