Hopeful reading

Well, I hope this note finds you all engaged in the Groves lastest adventure, the "New Testament Challenge"

I must admit I have been away from regular scripture reading for some time, but I look forward to learning some new things. As pastor Jeff said on sunday, no matter where you are in your faith walk, because God's word is a living word, He will use it to teach you or remind you of something...

Yesterday's reading reminded me of God's amazing grace and faithfulness. First, there was the reading in Mathew about all the family tree of Jesus from Abraham till Jesus. Did you catch some of the names on that list? Solomon - son of David and Bathsheba - the wife of Urriah the Hittite...or how about Boaz - the son of Rahab - who was a prostitute...if you know the stories behind the names you will know that some of these folks had a pretty shaky background to say the least...I mean talk about disfunctional families. This gives me hope not only for the pretty unsavory characters we come across each day but also each one of us. A life in God's hands by faith and grace through Jesus can be used for His glory no matter what your background is. Is that not good news?

Also, what about the reading from Acts. Don't you find it somewhat incredibly awesome that the first preaching of the Gosple message by Peter was to the very people who put Jesus to death?
In fact he tells them this was God's plan and God allowed this to happen so that He could save them, even at that point...

Well here is praying that we go through the New Testament challenge we continue to learn more about God and also live out more and more what we learn.

Vince