Many Thoughts!

I took yesterday off from work and blogging to run errands for the church as we get closer and closer to construction completion. So, here's what I call "many thoughts":

Sunday was a good day of worship. Our attendance has been off since the start of construction and worship time re-scheduled to 8:30 am. But, God knows what He's doing and knows who should be there. We continued our series on "The Importance of Supporting the Local Church":

Topic: Support the Local Church With Your Prayers
Text: Colossians 4:2-4

Thesis Statement: I am under no illusions that a strong church is a praying church and a praying church has praying people. The best support a person can give to the church is to pray for their church and the people of their church.

Let’s look into this letter from Paul to the Colossian church to help increase the level of prayer support in our local church assembly.

I. The Consistency of Your Prayers - v. 2a

- Never Stop Praying
- Prayer is hard work
- Prayer is Powerful

II. The Conduct of Your Prayers - v. 2b

- Be Ready to Pray at all times - "continuing earnestly" (I need to clarfiy, this is not speaking of the act of praying. The point I was driving home is that praying earnestly requires that we guard our prayer life. Some translations say "Devote yourself to prayer".)

- Be Grateful in your in prayers - "with thanksgiving"

III. The Content of Your Prayers - v. 3-4

- Pray for Opportunity to share the gospel – “as for me, that God would open to us a door for the word”.

- Pray for direction in sharing the gospel – “that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.”

I know this request is from Paul, the Apostle, but it has universal appeal. We all should be praying for opportunity and direction in sharing the gospel with a dying world.
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After service Tracy and I went to "Full G" (Pastor Payne) to hear Pastor John Reed from Fairview Baptist Church in OKC. I caught the tail end of his message but he was vintage Reed as usaual. After that I went home to eat leftover BBQ I cooked on Saturday and took a nap before my softball game. I had been since 2 am getting ready to preach so I was tired.

Later that evening Tracy and I slipped away from the kids and went to the movies to see "The Secret Lives of Bees". Excellent movie. Queen should get an Oscar for that performance and Jennifer Hudson was stellar as well as Alicia Keys.
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Yesterday, I ran errands for most of the day with Tracy. Got back home at about 2 pm and went to sleep. Please be in prayer for my son, Myles, he's a freshman in high school and struggling with some of his classes. I took him off the football team so he can focus on his education. I explained to him that the older we get the more responsible we must become. Education is more important than sports. He's capable of doing good work but can't focus on more than one thing at a time. I'm committing to spending more time with him to help him through this transition.
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This week is going to be pretty busy for me but with God's help I will survive.

Bottom, yesterday was a good day!