Welcome to the Pastor’s Corner, and welcome to the website of the First Presbyterian Church of Greenlawn! We hope that you will find here helpful resources for your spiritual journey.
That early Christians were called the “people of the way” is a reminder to us that we have not yet reached our destination, but continue to make our way along the path of discipleship. What is true of our lives as Christians is also true of this page and site. It, like us, is “a work in progress.”
If you would like to share any comments about this site, page or the sermons here included, or if you would like to request prayer, please feel welcome to contact me at pastorwoody@optonline.net.
And “may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 3:14)
Message from the Pastor
February 2012
Can it really be February already? Weren’t we just kneeling at a manger in Bethlehem? Can it already be time in a few short weeks to start our journey toward Jerusalem?
Even if we have packed up all our Christmas decorations and taken down all our Christmas lights, it remains very tempting for us to linger around the baby Jesus in a manger at Bethlehem. But faith is not nostalgia, and if we tarry too long in Bethlehem, we will be at risk of losing sight of our Savior who goes ahead of us to Jerusalem. But what does it mean to journey to Jerusalem with Jesus? What does it mean to become a people shaped by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ?
These questions are especially appropriate for Lent which begins with Ash Wednesday on February 22nd. Although Scripture never holds up suffering for suffering’s sake, it does anticipate that disciples will participate in the suffering of the One they seek to follow. Why? If we suffer as disciples, it is because our Lord Jesus Christ himself suffered for the sake of our broken world. If we truly join him in his redeeming work in the world, we shall also join him in his suffering.
It is my prayer that we will continue to trust in our triune God even and especially in the face of all the trials and tribulations that tend to break us as a people of God. We can have that trust because God in Jesus Christ identifies with us in our troubles, loss and need, and gathers up all our broken pieces before our merciful God.
In our trust, let us continue to respond to God’s call to discipleship and God’s invitation to fuller participation in God’s mission, whether here in Greenlawn or wherever else we discover God already at work in our world.
Let us trust in the Lord.
Together in service in His Name,
Pastor Fred |
