From the Pastor's Heart

  Happy New Year!! Woo-hoo!   It is a new year!   Wait?   You say no, it’s a month away?   You say, Pastor Joyce we haven’t Christmas yet.   Hmm, call the board together, something is wrong with our pastor.   Let me say it again, Happy New Year! Let me ask you a question, how do you know when the New Year is?   Your answer is probably because the calendar says so.   But there are other new year celebrations.   Probably the one we are most familiar with is Chinese New Year.   There is a Muslim New Year.   The Jewish New Year is celebrated Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.   Countries like Thailand, Iran, and the Russian Orthodox church all have unique timing for celebrations. Time is a slave.   We are slaves to our calendars.   We are slaves to the tyranny of the clock.   You know the sayings: Time and tide waits for no man.   Time is money.   Don’t waste your time.   Time is the most valuable...

I went back this morning. I went back to Salem. I am missing worship. Not the quiet pensive variety but deep holy worship. As I went back, I heard a strong voice leading in prayer. It started like this: Most Gracious Heavenly Father. The voice grew. The responses followed with a rhythm like the falling of dominos in a row. I knew this sound well. There were whispers of thank you Jesus. Or praise you God. Or oh yes God. As the leader’s voice swelled so did the response. Soon it was a cacophony of harmony. Hands were raised. Tears flowed. Heaven came down and was orchestrating the sound of worship. Needs expressed out loud at the same time. Adoration exclaimed. Quietness settled but there was no amen. A word of exhortation or adoration proclaimed. It came from the back or the side of auditorium. The anointed voice was heard. Hearts and heads bowed as they we absorbed the Holy Spirit’s work. Responses came. Some knelt. Some grieved over sins. Some expressed j...

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;   Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;   Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; (Ephesians 5:18-20) I’ve been following a devotional this year that has really been powerful.  If you are interested in a good online option, I highly recommend the Daily Text from Seedbed.  The last few days we have been wandering in the wilderness with the people of God.  There have been many times that I realize that stories that I thought I knew, maybe I didn’t know as well as I thought I did.  It’s good to flush out those finer points because we do think we know.  And the word of God is alive.  The Holy Spirit wants to make things alive to us. One of these entries admonished us to sing.  There is something about singing.  And I’m rath...

And He Walks With Me As I was praying and pondering what to write for my weekly devotional, I started thinking about the hymn , In The Garden.   We didn’t get to sing it on Sunday!  Nor did we get to sing He Lives, Up From the Grave, Christ Arose, and others.  I am sure that you have a hymn that you particularly love and makes your celebration of the Resurrection complete.  I also know that In The Garden is at the top of the list for many. This hymn was written by C. Austin Miles.  When I was a kid and trying to learn to play the melodica, I used to sit for hours with the hymnal practicing the hymns.  I always liked to look at who composed the music and who wrote the lyrics.  I noticed that a lot of hymns were written by C. Austin Miles.  Mr. Miles is responsible for nearly 300 hymns that appear in hymnals.  Some of the ones we are familiar with are Love, Mercy, and Grace , and Dwelling in Beulah Land .  However, it is In The Gar...

If you grew up reading the King James translation of the Bible this phrase is very familiar.   And it came to pass is used 396 times.   One of the first instances is in Genesis 8:6 “And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made” We’ve all heard the phrase; this too shall pass.   I saw an advertisement for a ring with the phrase in Hebrew engraved on the ring.   That piqued my interest.   There is a legend that I discovered.   “King Solomon was trying to humble his wisest servant, so he asked him to perform a seemingly impossible task: to find something that did not exist. He requested a magic ring — one that, if a sad man wore it, he would become happy and if a happy man wore it, he would become sad.” The story suggests that the servant could not find anything of such nature. So, King Solomon decided upon himself to go to a jeweler and design a ring with the inscription in Hebrew sayin...

The name of the LORD is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10 I think it was just last summer I did a sermon series on the story behind the penning of some of our most loved classic hymns.  Each hymn we looked out was born out of a deep experience that often-involved tragedy.  It is in the deep moments of life that we cry out to God and He meets us.  For me, one of the verses that I have clung to through the various and often very painful experiences of my life is “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  A simple phrase but so powerful and life-giving to know that Jesus is always with us. The song that has resonated with me over the last few days is “Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus.”  Here is a link to a beautiful version of this wonderful hymn.  I will also post the lyrics at the end of this blog. Louisa M. R. Stead was born in England in 1850. She came to the U.S. as a young woman. In 1875 Louisa married and move...

Psalm 23 - Walk Through Sermon March 15, 2020