October 2003 - Tower - Page 7
| Page 6 | T.O.C. | Index | Page 8 |
| Page 6 | T.O.C. | Index | Page 8 |
Each day we live, the environment suffers. We are indulgent in our excesses. We drive too much, we eat too much, we waste too much and we trash too much. Sometimes it seems that the most important thing in our life is striving to get "what we want." This is not the same as what we need, not even close!
The environmental problems and possible solutions will be part of the Mission Notes each month. Protecting this wonderful Earth that God has given us is a very fundamental mission in my view. If we do not increase our awareness and practice ways to protect it, we will lose it slowly, but surely.
Our RELAY FOR LIFE team wishes to give a "really huge" thank you to all of you for supporting our team. We raised $7,254.94 and the event raised $1,296,224! That is an enormous amount of money to help kick this disease out of the window. I truly believe they are getting closer every day to finding the cure.
We will be working on fund-raising projects during the fall, including a bake sale, and hopefully an after-church luncheon in January. Of course, there is always our infamous talent show to be scheduled in the spring. In fact, you might want to start practicing for that now (some of us will need that long!).
I wish to bring to your attention another way of helping the cause. You may honor or remember someone by making a donation to the church for Relay for Life. Please mark your check for "Relay" and Joan will send an acknowledgment to the person (or family) that a donation to Relay for Life has been received. In this way, your gift might make a difference in saving someone's life.
Thank you for being the caring people that you are.
What a beautifully inspiring book is Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. A prisoner in Rome when he wrote these glorious words, Paul is unsurpassed in eloquence, though he speaks as a humble apostle of his Lord Jesus Christ.
This hymn of praise celebrates the grace of God "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world." In chapter One, Paul writes that God "foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved . . . We have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace." This redemption is "according to " the undeserved love and goodness of God.
In foreordaining us to the status of sons, God brings us into a true and loving fellowship with him. All these blessings are for those who belong to Christ, in accordance with the divine choice "in Christ." "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world."
Paul speaks of our having been sealed with "the Holy Spirit of promise," referring to the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and his continuing presence among us as promised by Christ. The Holy spirit gives us the hope of a future "inheritance" of glory.
An "ambassador in chains," Paul has
triumphantly outlined in Ephesians
these immortal gifts of grace:
(Dr. Charles Erdman's Commentary was a great help to me in understanding Ephesians.)
| Page 6 | T.O.C. | Index | Page 8 |
If you have any comments on any of these pages, please email me: Robert W.(Bob) Mckitrick, thanks.
Last update: October 11, 2003