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Each week Pastor Sarah blogs on the Scripture for Sunday's upcoming sermon. Use this entry as a way to prepare your heart and mind for worship. See you Sunday!
Sunday’s Scripture ~ Luke 24:36-49.
Stewardship Focus ~ I Chronicles 29:14b-18.
This week in worship at South Shore United Methodist Church we will consecrate our commitments to God for the 2020 ministry year. We will offer God our pledges for how we will support God’s work within our shores and towards new shores through our presence, prayers, gifts, service, and witness.
We give because God gave first. We love because God loved first.
We give because God loves us.
Our study of I Chronicles 28 and 29 ends with King David praising God through prayer in and with the assembly. I believe these words of Scripture beautifully summarize our learnings during this season of stewardship. May they guide us as we complete our giving discernment in preparation for the 2020 ministry year. I look forward to offering my family’s commitment alongside yours this Sunday.
For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. I know, my God, that you search the heart, and take pleasure in uprightness; in the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our ancestors, keep for ever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts towards you.
Prayer: “Take my will, and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure-store. Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for thee.”* Amen.
*“Take My Life and Let It Be,” The United Methodist Hymnal 399.