SEARCHLIGHT

  May 31, 2024 Let us end our week of reflections  by looking at Jesus' teaching on Neighbouring. Luke 10:27-30 The man answered, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.” And, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” THAT'S 'right' NEIGHBOURLY of YA Jesus was asked a significant question by a religious leader, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This man was interested in what Jesus had to say about the topic of eternity. Jesus however, turned the question back to him, “What is written in the law?” The man acknowledged that eternal life is promised to those who love God deeply; those who demonstrate love for God by the way they live, and the way they love others. But, the man then asks Jesus to define the term “neighbor.” In response, Jesus proceeded to tell the stor

  MAY 30, 2024 Luke 19:41-42 41 As he (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. WALK. PRAY. PAY ATTENTION. LISTEN. Lord, help me to see my neighborhood  with Your eyes.  May my heart break  for those things that break Your heart. Amen

  May 29, 2024   Mark 12:29-31 The Message (MSG) Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘ Love others as well as you love yourself .’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”   WALK. PRAY. PAY ATTENTION. LISTEN. The last couple of days you likely noticed this heading of    WALK. PRAY. PAY ATTENTION. LISTEN. The intention of the title is to help us focus on our neighbors and our surroundings. As we move through our neighborhoods, walk or ride,  or mentally picture your street or the homes and people near you, the invitation this week is to pray for the area where God has placed us. Pray for the well being of your neighbors, and neighborhood.   Today We Pray: Lord, as I walk past my neighbors’ homes, I’m mindful that I don’t know many of their names. Help me to learn the names of those living by me. Amen.    

  May 28, 2024 There is something deep and transformational that happens when we walk the streets of our neighborhood while talking with God. You’re invited to make a "practice” by walking and praying through your own community.... I believe God has placed us where we are for a purpose and that loving our neighborhood's is part his plan. Building on Monday's devotion and God's instruction to "Pray for the Prosperty of the city ...." the rest of this week each day I will be posting a Bible Verse and a Prayer to help us "Love Where You Live" by praying for our neighborhood.  DAY 1 John 1:14   The Message   (MSG) The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish . WALK. PRAY. PAY ATTENTION. LISTEN.  Lord, please deepen my affection for my neighborhood, the place I consider home. Amen.

  MAY 27, 2024 Jeremiah 29:7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. COMMUNITY PRAYER Here is the backstory of the above verse. God’s People had been taken away into captivity. The Babylonians were God’s unsuspected means of judgment against Jerusalem and her inhabitants. The outcome was that the Israelites would be away from their homeland seventy years. Jeremiah was God’s prophet during this time. God spoke through Jeremiah and told the his people to seek the welfare for the city in which they would live during the exile. God was saying, “Your survival depends on them. Your welfare depends on their welfare.” “Your ‘success’ during the exile is dependent not on praying for yourselves, but for how you’re praying for others.” This seems so contrary to some of my praying, it almost seems backwards. Would you agree? That Praying for others is more important than praying for our

  May 24, 2024 We are going to conclude our week of a mini “Prayer Retreat” by reading Psalm 72. This psalm is one of the nine Royal Psalms (2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 89, 110, 132) these are Psalms that sing praise to the king as God’s chosen representative on earth. They are prayers from the worship life of God’s people for the king and his role as earthly ruler. You may recall that in Israel’s history the king represented the ruling presence of God among the people. So, with this backdrop the Psalm begins with “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son” (v. 1). Psalm 72 1 Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. 2 May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. 3 May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. 4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. 5 May he live  whi

  MAY 23, 2024   Psalm 63 is one of the most loved of the Psalms. In fact in the late 300’s AD it was ordained by the Church leaders “that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm.” Psalm 63 became know as “the morning hymn.” As Part of our “Prayer Retreat”, let us read together "t he morning hymn”  Psalm 63   1 You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8

  MAY 22, 2024 Our Prayer Retreat this week has taken us on an intimate walk or path with Jesus, and yesterday we were invited to acknowledge Jesus as our Rock. Today we look to Psalm 104, this psalm is often read on Pentecost Sunday with special focus on the line “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” (vs. 30) Psalm 104 1 Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. 2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent 3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. 4 He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. 5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. 6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,

  May 21, 2024 Today we continue our “Prayer Retreat”. Yesterday we walked and reflected on the words of Psalm 16, did you find a path to walk with Jesus, find a “sacred space” to talk with God? Today let’s read Psalm 62. 1 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. 2 Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. 3 How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down— this leaning wall, this tottering fence? 4 Surely they intend to topple me from my lofty place; they take delight in lies. With their mouths they bless, but in their hearts they curse. 5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. 6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. 9 Surely

  MAY 20, 2024 Jesus gave the following invitation to his disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Jesus we are told went out to a solitary place to spend time with God. Even the Creator in Genesis 1, when the work of creation was completed, rested. The point is we need these rejuvenating spaces in our lives too. This week let us engage in a PRAYER RETREAT together. Each day we are going to read a Psalm together, and you will be invited to take that Psalm with you into God’s beautiful creation to allow the “general revelation” of our Creator in all that he has made, connect with the “special revelation” of God’s word to us. We begin today with PSALM 16 . 1 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” 4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not po

    May 17, 2024 AND SO IT BEGINS Summer is here. I know that officially on the calendar June 20th is summer's start. But lets be honest, on the street, the May long weekend really kicks things off. I know this because I received notice that the City of Windsor, will open up the splashpads across the city this weekend, several people I have talked to in our neighborhood are heading for a campground, or an AirBNB out of the city or county to visit family or hang with friends. I mention all this simply to remind us that we are entering that season where we spend more time outside, and therefore we are in the perfect location to be overwhelmed by God’s presence in the blessing of creation.  Throughout the Bible the context for experiencing God’s overwhelming presence is not inside a temple or synagogue but out in the created world of night time starlit skies, slow sun set and sunrises, beautiful lakes, rivers, or falls, hills and valleys, nature walks and hikes, campfires and fami

  MAY 16, 2024 Matthew 25:14- 14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came

May 15, 2024 1 Peter 4:10-11 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. TO GOD BE THE GLORY Peter tells us that each follower of Jesus has received a gift, and this gift is to be used to benefit others. The point being, is that each of us has been “saved to serve”. Yes, it is by grace we have been saved and this is the gift of God, but God through the gift of the Spirit, also equips his people to serve in some capacity in the church and community. It is this understanding that results in Peter words that each of us have been gifted by God to serve one another, as faithful stewards of God’s grace. As the transformed people of God

  May 14, 2024   Luke 15:11-32 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up

  May 13, 2024 Matthew 9:9-16 9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,”he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” 14Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” 15Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. 16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, f

  May 10, 2024 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. AMBASSADORS OF RECONCILIATION Paul stresses the word “reconciliation” in this final portion of 2 Corinthians 5. The Apostle’s message in these verses is that God brings the new creation into existence by sen

  May 9, 2024 1 Timothy 3:14-16 14 Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, 15 if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 16 Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. HAPPY ASCENSION DAY!! Happy Ascension Day? The ascension of Jesus may seem like a teaching that makes no difference. In some Christian circles the Ascension of Jesus receives little attention. I suppose when the Ascension is compared to Jesus suffering and death and his resurrection victory over death, Jesus’ ascension can seem almost an afterthought. However, the ascension has always been a part of the Christian story. Christianity is a religio

  May 8, 2024 2 Corinthians 5:11-16 11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. . . . 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. COMPELLED BY LOVE In our devotion yesterday we saw that Paul was reminding the Corinthian believers that while we long to be “at home with the Lord” we live in the time between promise and fulfillment. In that space of waiting for fulfillment he says “we live by faith, not by sight” , underscoring God’s faithfulness and that we can trust in the promises of our good God. While we wait, the apostle says, “we make it our goal to please” our creator.  In today’s verses from 2 Corinthians 5, we see what we have to live for as the community of Jesus. “Sinc