Stonybank Community Church with Pastor James Carroll

Offertory on Mother's Day by Eloise at the piano and Joanne on the flute

He shared regarding his mother and prayed a blessing for the mothers.

A day that affects each of us in some way ...as goes the home so goes the nation.  The best way to teach our children about the Lord is from generation to generation.  Any church is just one generation away from extinction.  We need virtuous women with strength of character.

The story of Dinah is a made for television drama of a young girl who longed for the affection of her father and the story is complete with love, sex, murder, and greed.  Jacob who did not know the love of his own father himself evidently does not know how to love his own children and so once again we have illustrated for us the importance of father’s in the home.  However, someone else's failure does not excuse your own.

Eloise share some of the background of this hymn before playing for our offertory

Isaac loved Esau but Rebekah loved Jacob and the story of these twins plays out like a modern mystery when the home is divided.  What Rebekah hoped to save she lost and what Jacob hoped to secure he failed.  But in the end Jacob comes home reminding us that God does not bless those who deserve it but who believe.  

played by the bell choir

Every religion of the world has come from man’s best effort at fulfilling their own heart’s desire and making peace on earth but as with Abraham it only compounds the problem. There will never be peace on earth, peace in your heart, peace in your family or peace with God apart from the faith of Abraham in Jehovahjireh, the Lord who sees our need and has provided proof of his love of toward us, because that God the father sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 1 John 4:9

Eloise telling the story joined by Joanne on the flute

Martin Luther said, our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in books alone, but in every leaf of springtime.  Every seed placed in the ground is an illustration of the resurrection.  The hope of Heaven is a very real place of physical beauty and we will be very much alive in glorified bodies.