“The LORD is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds” (Psalm 145:13b).

God is faithful in all his words and promises.

• If God said it, you can bank on it! There is nothing that God promises that will not come to fruition.
• With human beings we have to prove our faithfulness because there are too many times where our words are in discord with our deeds. But with God this isn’t the case. Remember how God created the heavens and the earth in Genesis? God spoke it, and it was so. That’s how it works with God. There is never a time when what God speaks is inconsistent with what God does.

God is gracious in all his deeds and all he does.

• Because God is good, kind, loving, omnipotent, and omniscient, everything God does comes from the position of grace and love.
• This means that everything God does is loving, king, and good.

What an awesome God! And the best part is we get to call him Father.

Take heart, Christian. Remember who your God is. Remember your Father.

Finally, God calls each and everyone of us to follow in his footsteps. Can you imagine what America would look like today if Christians were faithful in all our words and gracious in all our deeds? That is our calling. That is our charge.

“Look to the LORD and his strength” (1 Chronicles 16:11).

Facebook reminded me that a year ago on this day I was on the shores of Galilee with about twenty people from the Little Church on the Prairie and Lakewoodgrace.

How our world has changed in one year. Although this was only a year away the world of November 2019 feels like a world away and eons ago.

I try to stay positive. There is still much to be thankful for.

• My family and I are healthy and doing well.
• The people of the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace are doing well. There are many congregations struggling, but the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace is still doing well under the circumstances.

But so much has changed. With the Thanksgiving holidays and Christmas right around the corner, many of us will not be spending time with friends and family due to the spike in Covid-19 cases in our community and our country. This continues to be a hard time.

For this reason, it is even more important to start our day with God. More than ever, we need a daily reorientation and recalibration to God’s will and vision for our world. There is too much in our world that can get us down. We need a daily reminder of who we are because of who God is.

So, “Look to the LORD and his strength.”

God can do more with our surrender than we can do with our control.

We are not alone in this world, to make sense of our rapidly changing world on our own. God is with us, always.

You are God’s beloved. You are not alone. God loves you. God wants what is best for you. God knows best what is best for us. Trust in him.

• 

“Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).

Online worship.

Meh. I know. It was cool for the first couple of weeks.

I know. Online worship is not the same thing as gathering in person as a congregation.

In light of the spiking Covid-19 cases in our area and around the country, I don’t see the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace opening up for full worship anytime soon.

Here’s the thing about worship. Worship is not something we can choose to opt out of. If God is God, if Jesus is our Savior, if we are Christians, worshiping God is one of the main things Christians do. We worship because God calls us to worship. We worship because worship is one of God’s tools to touch our hearts and lives. We worship because it is one of the best testimonies to a world who doesn’t know who God is.

As Jesus was entering into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked Jesus to order the disciples to stop. Listen to Jesus’ response: “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40). Praising and worshiping is what we are called to do.

I know online worship is not the same as in person worship. But until a cure and a vaccine for covid-19 is available, this is what we’ve got.

Let me close with a story I came across on social media.

A lady went to her pastor and said, “I won’t be attending church anymore.”

“May I ask why?” the pastor inquired.

She said, “I see people on their cell phones during the service, some are gossiping, some just arent’ living right, they are all just hypocrites.

The pastor got silent and said, “Ok. But can I ask you to do something for me before you make your final decision?”

She said, “What’s that?”

He said, “Take a glass of water and walk around the church two times and don’t let any water fall out of the glass.”

She said, “Yes, I can do that.” She came back and said, “It’s done.”

He asked her three questions:

1. Did you see anyone on their phone?
2. Did you see anyone gossiping?
3. Was anyone living wrong?

She said, “I didn’t see anything because I was so focused on this glass so the water wouldn’t fall.”

He told her, “When you come to church, you should be just that focused on God so that you don’t fall. That’s why Jesus said, ‘Follow me.’ He did not say follow Christians. Don’t let your relationship with God be determined by how others relate with God. Let it be determined by how focused you are on God.”

So, friends, when it comes to online worship what are you focused on?