Sunday we shall see from Exodus 17:8-16 that being a follower of Christ involves engaging in a battle. Charles Spurgeon helps orient us:
“The children of Israel were not under the power of Amalek — they were
free men; and so we are not under the power of sin any longer. The yoke
of sin has been broken by God’s grace from off our necks, and now we have
to fight not as slaves against a master, but as freemen against a foe. Moses
never said to the children of Israel while they were in Egypt, “Go, fight with
Pharaoh.” Not at all; it is God’s work to bring us out of Egypt and make
us his people, but when we are delivered from bondage, although it is God’s
work to help us, we must be active in our cause. Now that we are alive from
the dead we must wrestle with principalities and powers and spiritual
wickedness if we are to overcome.”

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

Psalm 103:11-13

The gift of water, air, children, a spouse.  Health, walking, holding a baby, etc etc.  They are channels of adoration.

Clive Staples Lewis: “Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility. . . . But aren’t

there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them

“bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean

“pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.” It is the stealing of the apples

that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the

glory. . . . I have tried since . . . to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration.

I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One

must of course give thanks, but I meant something different . . .

Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me

this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose

far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs

back up the sunbeam to the sun. . . . If this is Hedonism, it is also a

somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labour.”

July 4 weekend? Yes.

Sunday at 6:00pm I will be leading an hour of corporate prayer.

We meet in a classroom at the end of the hallway  in the main building.

This corporate time of prayer is for the purpose of:
–exalting God
–claiming His promises
–caring for His people
–fighting injustice
–about 40 other great purposes

So come if you can–no matter your prayer history and/or experience.  You’re welcomed and will benefit from the time.  Only those who want to do so are asked to pray aloud.

One of the themes in Exodus 17:1-7 is that God is  on trial.

C. S. Lewis observed: “The ancient man
approached God as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern
man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite
a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god
who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may
even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the
Bench and God in the Dock.”

Phil Ryken says: “Instead of starting with God and evaluating our experience from
his point of view, we start with our own circumstances and judge him on
that basis. When things go wrong, when life does not meet our expectations,
we are quick to fix the blame squarely on his shoulders and to demand
some kind of explanation.”