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Pastor Paul had initiated a preaching series on the Father Heart of God which was very compelling and stretching. Below is a love letter created by a Canadian man, Barry Adams, who had a major breathrough in his life when the Holy Spirit began to reveal the Father Heart of God to him.

The Father’s Love Letter is a series of truths about God’s love extrapolated from the Scripture. I was reminded about this letter by some of our Filipino young people via Facebook. Enjoy!

My Child,

You may not know me, but i know everything about you (Psalm 139:1)
I know when you sit down and when you rise up (Psalm 139:2)
I am familiar with all your ways (Psalm 139:3)
Even the very hairs of your head are numbered (Matthew 10:29-31)
For you were made in my image (Genesis 1:27)
In me you live and move and have your being (Acts 17:28)
For you are my offspring (Acts 17:28)
I knew you even before you were conceived (Jeremiah 1:4-5)
I chose you when i planned creation (Ephesians 1:11-12)
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book (Psalm 139:15-16)
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live (Acts 17:26)
You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)
I knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13)
And brought you forth on the day you were born (psalm 71:6)
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me (John 8:41-44)
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love (1 John 4:16)
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you (1 John 3:1)
Simply because you are my child and I am your Father (1 John 3:1)
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could (Matthew 7:11)
For I am the perfect Father (Matthew 5:48)
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand (James 1:17)
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs (Matthew 6:31-33)
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope (Jeremiah 29:11)
Because I love you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3)
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore (Psalm 139:17-18)
And I rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17)
I will never stop doing good to you (Jeremiah 32:40)
For you are my treasured possession (Exodus 19:5)
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul (Jeremiah 32:41)
And I want to show you great and marvelous things (Jeremiah 33:3)
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me (Deutoronomy 4:29)
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4)
For it is I who gave you those desires (Philippians 2:13)
I am able to do more than you could possibly imagine (Ephesians 3:20)
For I am your greatest encourager (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you (Psalm 34:18)
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart (Isaiah 40:11)
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes (Revelation 21:3-4)
AndI’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth (Revelation 21:3-4)
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my own Son, Jesus (John 17:23)
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed (John 17:26)
He is the exact representation of my being (Hebrews 1:3)
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you (Romans 8:31)
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you (1 John 4:10)
I gave up everything I loved that i might gain your love (Romans 8:31-32)
If you receive the gift of my Son Jesus, you receive me (1 John 2:23)
And nothing will separate you from my love again (Romans 8:38-39)
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party in heaven has ever seen (Luke 15:7)
I have always been Father, and will always be Father (Ephesians 3:14-15)
My question is…will you be my child? (John 1:12-13)
I am waiting for you (Luke 15:11-32)

Love, Your Dad

Almighty Father

Date: August 10, 2008
Speaker: Pastor Jan Drayer
Subject: Brokenness
Summary: Brokenness is the believer joyfully submitting to the will of God knowing full well that He loves us and has our best interests at heart.

Listen now

On Sunday, August 17 we’ll be hosting our annual church picnic at Downs Park. Along with all the normal festivities (such as the Whippersnapper vs. Gray Hairs softball match - obviously, the name derived by gray hairs!), great barbecue, frisbees and footballs there are two very important changes to the event this year.

Church in the Park

For the first time, we will not be going over to the Park after service. Instead, we will meet over at the park and have a service over there. Bring a friend! Parking is free!

Church at 11am!

Instead of our normal meeting time, please plan to show up for 11am worship at Tanglewood pavilion.

For a map of Downs park, please visit the Anne Arundel County Parks website.

Wow! Whoa! Wow! That was our basic vocabulary on our first full day in Egypt. Along with, “How did they do it?” There are several theories, but nobody really knows for sure. How?  

Five thousand years ago, without bull-dozers, cranes, heavy equipment and modern technology, the great pyramids rose up out of the sand. (No, I don’t think they were built by aliens from outer space…) For sure, this building project - these enormous monuments, tombs actually - involved huge quantities of raw materials, food & lodging for the work force, untold expense, and several decades to complete.

And multitudes of slaves. That’s what got me thinking as we circled the site on the backs of camels and horses. These colossal monuments were built on the backs of slaves (who knows how many thousands) - human beings made in the image of God, but all forced to lay down their lives to satisfy the egos of a few kings who wanted impressive tombs. Their energies, abilities, time - their very lives and limbs - used up. Whatever else they might have done with their lives was preempted by pyramid building.

Many, forced to lay down their lives for one who was considered powerful and important. The Gospel is the exact opposite: One - who is all powerful and all important - laying down His life for the many. The King who is the Servant of all - that’s Jesus.

He did it so we wouldn’t be enslaved to things that use up our lives and leave us empty-handed. He did it so we would be free to live for Him, to live for something that really matters - something that will bring blessing to our world here and now, and glory to our God into eternity. Something better than pyramid-building. 

And this brings me to the question: what am I spending my life on? Am I slaving away at something that, in the end, won’t matter? Are my energies, finances, abilities, my time, being hi-jacked and used up for something that God never intended? Something that leaves me with nothing left over for what does matter? Pyramids come in many shapes these days: from maxed-out credit cards to maxed-out calendars; there’s the ‘keep-everybody-happy’ pyramid, or the ‘live-for leisure’ pyramid. I could go on.

Pyramids can look pretty impressive, but remember, they’re just tombs for the dead -and they use up a lot of stuff in the making,  a lot of life that was meant to be lived for something better. We descended a tunnel into one of these tombs. Interesting for sure. It was also really uncomfortable; suffocating, actually, and I couldn’t wait to get into the open again. So remember, you’re not a slave, and you have a God-given life to live. Let’s live free, and live for the Lord. 

Paul

“But I have stilled and quieted my soul..” (Psalm 131:2)

I’m in love. Infatuated, if you want to know the truth. It’s all new, exciting, and I just can’t seem to stop gazing into that face. Each day I discover something new and wonderful as we get to know each other… Don’t worry, I’m talking about my new ipod touch (but then maybe you should be worried). Hopefully, the infatuation will wear off, and it will just become a useful tool that I’ll be able to put down after I’ve checked mail, looked up a Bible passage, or enjoyed some good music.

Trouble is, opportunities to become addicted abound in our world. I haven’t checked out statistics, but I would hazard a guess that addictions of all kinds are at an all-time high. We’ve all heard of people addicted to video gaming, addicted to the internet, addicted to fast food, addicted to dieting & exercise, addicted to bad relationships, or even to just plain old busyness! You name it, we humans have an amazing ability to latch on to something that feeds a need, that makes us feel strong, or secure, or affirmed or comforted or in control or important or whatever, and before you know it – we just can’t stop.

God, on the other hand, wants us to be free – to be able to stop, to put it down, to be still – to be at peace in His presence, without being driven by feverish demands and desperate needs. For a child to mature, at some point he must be weaned from the breast or the bottle. He must learn to function without the thing that fed, comforted, filled his tummy and helped him fall asleep at night. He doesn’t like the process at all. He will probably fight it – scream, cry, plead or beg. But eventually he gives in, and he realizes that not only is everything OK and his needs are still met, but now he has a new level of freedom he didn’t have before. Hmmm…

In the spiritual growth process, God has an agenda – to wean us from all the ways we try to meet our needs without Him, all the substitutes for His presence and peace that leave us unfulfilled. So here are some questions to help you consider what I’m talking about and to translate it into real life:

• What do you really want, and how do you react when you don’t get it?
• What is it, or where is it in your life that you can’t stop and be still, be at peace?

Answer those questions, and you’re on the way to more freedom, peace and godly contentment. Now, how can we cooperate with God in the process? The answer is here in Psalm 131:2 – King David says, ‘I have stilled and quieted my soul.’ Do yourself a favor this week: turn off the TV, the radio, the computer, the music, find a quiet place, and sit still for 15 minutes. Read Psalm 131 (it’s only 3 verses). Ask God to make His presence real to you, to meet the deep needs of your heart. And wait. Do it the next day. And the next. Sound scary? See if you can stop, just for that long. As for me, someone might need to hide my ipod ;-)

Grace & Peace
Pastor Paul

There! HA! I said it….I am a Cubs fan…MUHAHAHAHAHA! …but seriously folks.

We were down Annapolis way last Saturday. Nice place. The Naval Academy. The shops. The bay. The ambiance. Good stuff.

While walking with my family near the Naval Academy Visitors Center a voice from behind chimed, “Yeah! Go Cubs!” (I happened to be proudly wearing my Cubs cap.) I whirled quickly, gave a fist pump, and retorted, “Go Cubbies! This is the year!”

Editor’s note: The Cubs have not won a World Series since Theodore Roosevelt was president…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_cubs.shtml 

An hour later,  a guy with a Cubs hat walked by …he smirked at me and said, “Go Cubs!”, to which I  again quickly retorted, “Go Cubbies! This is the year!” And as he and his entourage walked by I bleated, “And a comet will destroy the earth this year too!” We all laughed, painfully. Such is the life of a Cubs fan. So much promise with so little result. A title seems like such a far away dream.

Sometimes, it can seem like we are spiritual Cubs fans- eagerly awaiting something from God that never seems to arrive.  We wait for our hopes to be realized. We wait for a sign, an answer, any morsel of communication from heaven….and there is seeming (or very real!) silence. How do we operate in that environment?

1. Realize that while any time seems suitable for us, God has a perfect sense of time.

There are many examples of this in the Bible, but one stands out.

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law. Galatians 4:4

When the world needed a Savior “yesterday”, God still waited for the precise time for the birth of Jesus. This was not out of negligence or of any deficiency in God, but it was out of His perfect knowledge of what was best. He still operates that way today.

2. Realize that silence from heaven does not equal God abandoning you.

Matthew’s gospel begins with, “…and they will call him Immanuel” –which means, “God with us.”", and ends with, “…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” God is still with us by His Holy Spirit who lives within us and works around us. God has not abandoned you, He is with you.

3. Realize that we might have to make adjustments in our life to see the breakthroughs we desire.

There are instances where repentance is in order for the believer. Repentance is changing our behavior to match that of what the Bible reveals. At times, our choices hinder what God wants to do in us. We should heed the promptings of the Holy Spirit in this regard.

4. Realize that God does not always guarantee getting believers out of every bad situation, but He does guarantee walking with us through the bad situation.

Possibly the best example we can utilize is of God meeting , Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fire after they refused to honor the request of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:25). Here is reality, Christians struggle, they get sick, they get persecuted, they face heartbreak, and they die. But God is with us through the journey. Trusting Him and leaning on HIm is how He wants us to push through.

5. Realize that there is a day coming when Jesus will return for the Church and will end all of our questions, fears, and needs.

There will come a day when all of our waiting will end definitively. The day of the Lord will come and we will be transformed and will ever be in the Lord’s very presence. That day is coming. It is an unstoppable, inescapable reality. Tears will be wiped away. Full hope will be realized. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Do I think the Cubs will win the World Series? I certainly hope so…maybe even this year. Will Jesus return? Yes….maybe even this year.

We’re trying to do some new things here at Community Gospel Church. This site has remained largely static and I think we understand that there are a lot of great web technologies out there and we’d like to be a part of it.

Of course, I personally am not new to this kind of thing. I’ve been blogging over at Technosailor.com for over four years, but this church is my spiritual family and so I’m hoping to be able to bring some of the things I’ve learned into this space as well.

It is an evolving thing!