Recount God's Goodness

"[God] desires us to appreciate the great plan of redemption, to realize our high privilege as the people of God, and to walk before Him in obedience, with grateful thanksgiving. He desires us to serve Him in newness of life, with gladness every day. He longs to see gratitude welling up in our hearts because we have access to the mercy seat, the throne of grace; because our names are written in the Lamb's book of life; because we may cast all our care on Him who cares for us. He bids us rejoice because we are the heritage of the Lord, because the righteousness of Christ is the robe of His saints, because we have the blessed hope of the soon coming of our Saviour." 


Ellen G. White
Upward Look

it's September already?!

it's been a full month since my last post. i know, i've been slacking off. we've been really busy with all the buzz at church.
first off, we're moving really really soon into the new church location. it's a few kilometers away from the old one, a little far for commute but it's all worth it. it's half-a-hectare of land with so much promise in it. we'll start cleaning up this sunday.
along with that, we just started on a new business at church - one that'll help ensure we could pay for the land's monthly dues so it could finally be ours. we're selling Hope for Health's herbal supplements. it's the perfect business for us since it's helping people move away from synthetic medicine and providing them a safe source of effective natural alternatives. i put quite a bit of my time into building the website for that which you can visit here.
i've also been busy with paperwork for the church's registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. we've been unregistered until our prison ministry called for it - and now we are! :)
my current and upcoming projects include the next quarter's Sabbath School lesson, fliers, promotional materials for the herbal supplements, actually moving into the new church location, scrapbooks for the Earliteens class (yey!), blogging, more Bible students, and much much more.
i'll let you in on the loop as often as i can, so stay tuned. God bless you. :)

Stagnation

Many who have an intelligent knowledge of the truth, and are able to defend it by arguments, are doing nothing for the upbuilding of Christ’s kingdom. We meet them from time to time, but they bear no fresh testimonies of personal experience in the Christian life; they relate no new victories gained in the holy warfare. Instead of this you notice the same old routine, the same expressions in prayer and exhortation. Their prayers have no new note; they express no greater intelligence in the things of God, no more earnest, living faith. Such persons are not living plants in the garden of the Lord, sending forth fresh shoots and new foliage, and the grateful fragrance of a holy life. They are not growing Christians. They have limited views and plans, and there is no expansion of mind, no valuable additions to the treasures of Christian knowledge. Their powers have not been taxed in this direction. They have not learned to view men and things as God views them, and in many cases unsanctified sympathy has injured souls and greatly crippled the cause of God. The spiritual stagnation that prevails is terrible. Many lead a formal Christian life and claim that their sins have been forgiven, when they are as destitute of any real knowledge of Christ as is the sinner. {5T 264.3}