At the Church I go to, on a Wednesday morning there are normally around 20ish people and everyone offers everyone else Peace and it's lovely. It really is such a lovely part of the service. My Rector is wonderful and he is happy for you to partake or not to partake, to have a blessing or just sit... He is also really happy for you to get up and walk around or walk out - he has had mh issues himself, so he "gets it" and is one of the most lovely people!
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
Just shows how different different churches can be. We don’t exchange the peace, our Rector never wears a dress (unless it’s a funeral), just shirt, trousers and a dog collar, and, indefinitely, I’ll be able to ‘attend’ the service from home via YouTube. We don’t ‘do’ rituals, and no one has to take communion, in fact it’s only recommended for people who have a Christian faith
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Luke 22:31-38
[31] “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. [32] But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” [33] But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” [34] Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” [35] Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered. [36] He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. [37] It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors' ; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” [38] The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That's enough!” he replied.
Simon Peter (and this is something I never realised before) always comes first when the apostles names are listed in the Gospels, and also when the ‘inner circle’ of three (Peter, James and John) are mentioned. He was always destined to be the leader of the new Christian church. So, Satan was always going to target him to trip him up. Before this night was over, Peter would deny knowing Jesus three times.
Yet Jesus prayed, not that Peter would resist the temptation to deny him, but that Peter’s faith wouldn’t fail. This wouldn’t be the last time Peter would screw up, but God had a job for him to do and knew that the frail, wobbly, new church needed him and his experiences to survive.
I’ll admit, this story always gives me hope - no matter how much I screw up, God still wants me
‘So whatever we’ve done in the past, our lives need not be fruitless. Failure is never final when Jesus prays for us’.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
I've denied my faith for a multitude of reasons, yet this story also gives me the same hope too. That as long as I still have faith - whether I openly talk about it - something very new to me - that I'm still going to be welcomed...
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
Paula (23-03-21)
Luke 22:39-46
[39] Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. [40] On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” [41] He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, [42] “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” [43] An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. [44] And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. [45] When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. [46] “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”
Jesus was in so much pain here that, even after the angel strengthened him, he was in anguish, prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Why? Because the ‘cup’ he was facing was the wrath, the anger, of God towards humanity that had turned their faces away from him.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians says,
Galatians 3:10,13
[10] For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”
The ‘curses of the law’ were set out in the Old Testament, as told to the Israelites by Moses during their time in the wilderness:
Deuteronomy 28:15-20,45
[15] However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you: [16] You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. [17] Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. [18] The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. [19] You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. [20] The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. [45] All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.
And Jesus took these curses on, for humanity - for me! A wonder and a blessing I do not deserve
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
I have to confess to finding all that quite hard to understand and work out what it's actually saying itms?
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
He mush for forgotten about me. No one can have the bad luck I get so I must be cursed
I don't believe in people being cursed...
Do a little of something that makes you happy every day!
I think we have to remember that the scriptures - like other ancient documents - were documented by scribes who may have taken advantage of using 'artistic licence' or that they interpreted the meanings incorrectly or even embellished the contents to scare the living daylights out of people...the Piers Morgan's of their day.....the God of my understanding doesn't make threats or curse anyone...I think that you can take a lot of that content with a pinch of salt....someone has altered the 'script' for some reason or another. God is not to be feared, and some of the religious 'offshoots' seem to 'get off' preaching hellfire and brimstone to those poor ignorant souls - now and in the time of Christ - to mould them into subservient quivering wrecks giving their elders total dominance over them. The Free Church of Scotland and The Free Presbyterian Church, to name but two.Originally Posted by Suzi
You aren't being cursed at all, and certainly not forgotten. You're being challenged so that you realise your own strength. Positive things have come out of it......sort of a 'See? Good things can happen'. It's in HIS time not yours.
Neither do I Suzi, they're threats created by evil cretins to frighten people into submission. God mustn't be feared, after all we are his children and he is our Dad and I believe he has our best interest at heart. Nobody said life was going to be a piece of cake. When I'm pee'd off with everything and feel I've been forgotten or left behind and wronged through no fault of my own - or so I think - it's usually me that creates my own version of hell. I remember years ago when dating an AA old timer, I said to him in his kitchen.." I can't seem to do anything right!!!" His reply was "Maybe it's because you're doing something wrong" such a simple answer, but it made me rethink my actions and decisions.
Suzi (24-03-21)
Yes, but that’s what Jesus came for - so we aren’t cursed! God had his ‘salvation plan’ in place from the very beginning
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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