Weekly Greeting - August 23, 2024
Greetings friends,
One of the words we hear a lot these days is passion. Passion leads you to excel in anything you do. However, there are different sources and kinds of passion. The kind of passion God would have us pursue can be seen in a phrase from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, a phrase included in our celebration of communion.
I urge you, Brothers and Sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Romans 12:1
Paul is using temple language. He is describing a worshipper coming with an offering. There were different kinds of offerings. In Romans 12, he is referring to a burnt offering, which was an offering offered as a way of showing one’s complete commitment to God. A burnt offering is a way of saying all that I have God is yours.
Animals brought to be sacrificed were dead. Paul is calling us to be living sacrifices, to be passionate about God and the things of God. In Romans 6, Paul tells us that God wants us to be dead to sin and alive to God. I once heard Romans 6 described as God’s wanted poster. What would happen if we really got serious about loving and serving God passionately? Being dead to sin and alive to God could change our lives and our world!
Blessings,
Craig
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Rev. B.J. Brack, our new District Superintendent, will be preaching for us this Sunday as we continue our “Created for Connection” worship series. The text this week is Ephesians 2:11-22 as we focus on connections across barriers.
Change is not easy. The Tennessee Conference and Memphis Conference merged on January 1st 2022. On Thursday evening, July 11, 2024 the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference’s Committee on Episcopacy assigned Bishop David Graves as the next episcopal leader of our new conference. Rev. Brack will help us understand what these changes will mean for our conference and for our congregation.
What an honor and a privilege to have Rev. Brack as our preacher this Sunday. Please come ready to help welcome him to Bethlehem and the Harpeth River District.