As we draw near to Thanksgiving, I cannot help but be aware of all that I have. I have a family I love, a warm home, food on my table and a wonderful church community. And above all else, I have the gift of Jesus Christ in my life. I am truly grateful for every gift that God has poured into my life, but most of all for the gift of Jesus.
When I consider the hope, strength, joy, forgiveness and purpose that Jesus has brought into my life, I can’t help but want to share it. As Christ followers, we have received the most precious of gifts. The most wonderful thing about the gift of Christ is that we can share it with others over and over again and our supply is never diminished. No matter how much we give Jesus away, we still have him in full measure in our own lives.
In fact, my experience has been that the more we share Jesus, the more we experience the hope, joy and love of God in our own lives. What a paradoxical thing. The more we give our faith away, the more we have. The more we share the love of Jesus, the more deeply we experience his love in our own lives.
In light of that truth, it we would seem clear that the best thing we can do with this gift is to give it away. We are coming into the Christmas season very soon. This is a time of year when people who do not yet have a church home, or who do not yet have a relationship with Jesus, are most likely to be open to an invitation. I would ask you to begin thinking and praying about who you can invite to join us this Christmas season. Every time we extend an invitation, we are offering the gift of Jesus.
We are now accepting registrations for our Texas Mission Trip in February
Speaking of invitations, I want to invite you all to join us tomorrow evening at our Sandown campus for the Texas Mission fund raising dinner. It promises to be a great time of food and fellowship and a wonderful opportunity to support this important mission work. Dinner is Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.
I also want to remind you that we are doing our first ever Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Thanksgiving day between 11:30 and 1:00 p.m. Because this is our first year doing it, we really need to seize every opportunity to invite guests to join us. Help us share the invitation by personally inviting people you think might be blessed to attend. I would ask you also to share it on your social media in any way you can. We are encouraging people to preregister to assist with planning. Please sign up for the dinner at www.thanksgiving-dinner.org. If you would like to help, please go to www.signupgenius.com and search on care@stmattumc.org.
I look forward to having us all together in worship this weekend as we continue our “Deeper” series. This has been an awesome series and I know you will not want to miss this Sunday.
God Bless,
Pastor Steve