High Street Herald November 2009
The month of November brings Thanksgiving, a time to reflect upon on our blessings of the past year, and to praise and thank God for every thing He has done. A verse that has come to mind recently and speaks to me such a true meaning is Ps 30:12 “To the end that my glory (or my joyful heart) may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.” The Psalmist in the preceding verses had been mentioning many great blessings, God’s mercy, and most of all for God’s delivering power. We all have much to thank God for this year. God has continued to bless our finances and our work as we continue to upgrade our facilities. We have a beautiful new entryway with beautiful new lights to grace the entrance of our Church and the parsonage recently received a new concrete driveway. We have plans for the next year of an upgrade to our Church parking lot. Again we thank the Lord as this all has been paid for in cash and we still have our C.D.’s in place on top of all that. We most of all have seen people saved this year that are taking an active part in our Church. God is good! Yes I would like to see the numbers increase, but faithfulness to God and obedience to Him will help bring this. The devil has tried us, but God has won every time. Praise be to God! We have so much to thank Him for.
We individually have so much to thank God for. We have lost some senior Saints due to losing their health and of transfer to the Eternal Church, but we have seen their victorious Spirit carry them through these times, especially sister Mona at the time of her passing. This is an encouragement to we that are younger at how God will carry us down to our old age. As our blessed pray warrior sister Helen continues to fight cancer we have seen her victorious Spirit and we all continue still to turn to her for prayer. We have seen Effie, Louise, Bob, Kate & Wayne all battle illness and still proclaim God’s victory. While they may have had to miss many services they continue to plan right on serving God and getting back to Church. Do we not thank God for these people? We thank God for continuing to help Nolan and Janice both of whom probably would not still be here without God. For helping my mom with her illness and trials that is now living with us how much we thank God for helping us. Many others have battled different needs, but God has been the victor! Let us Thank God for He is the victor! And He will continue to be!
So when we sit down to the Turkey and dressing, the cakes and pies, and all the goodies let us not fail to thank God for all He has done. We were all taught that if someone does something for you that you thank them. That not only gives them honor and respect, but inclines them to help us again if we have need. You may take a lot of people for granted, but do not fail to thank God. Thanksgiving is another one of those Holidays where the true meaning is lost. It now could be more properly titled “National Feast day” rather than a day of Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving was set aside to Thank God for a free land, for provisions God had given and His protection, and for friends (Native Americans) that had helped
November is also our month of fulfilling the commitment to our Church. This is your Church and without you there will be no Church. It takes your faithful attendance and support for the Church to succeed and remain vital in these days. I would like to challenge you this month to seek to recommit yourselves to the Church. To pray and ask God what you can do to help your Church services to be alive and Spirit filled, to see God’s convicting Spirit in each service, to meet the ministry needs in the Church, to see the financial needs continuing to be met, and see the Congregation grow in number and Spirit. The building does not make up the Church, the people make up the Church. A recent Church sign I saw was laughable but too true. “Church Positions: The positions of fusser and complainer are currently over filled. We need workers and praisers, many positions available.” Better close on that one!
In Christian love,
Pastor Bruce
