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It’s been a good week here at Pleasant Grove.  Sunday’s services were
refreshing, especially because a number of us had visiting family members!
While we were missing some regulars, it’s always good to see some
familiar faces from the extended Pleasant Grove family.  It was good to
hear our choir on Sunday morning (which really sounded great, I thought),
and we had a good Sunday-evening turnout as well.  If you haven’t been
able to make it on Sunday nights for awhile, consider getting into the
habit.  You don’t have to dress up or anything, and a number of you have
told me that you’ve felt the Lord’s presence very clearly recently at
church, especially in Evening Worship.

We also had a very positive Deacons Meeting last night.  Remember, your
deacons are here to serve you (that is, after all, the meaning of the
Greek word “diakonos” that is the root of the term Deacon we use today).
Call them with needs, concerns, or prayer requests.
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In looking back on Luke 11, where we were Sunday morning, I can’t help but
consider our often-misdirected focus in prayer.  God commands us to pray
regularly (I Samuel 12:23; Jeremiah 33:3), but in looking at the Model
Prayer, Jesus shows us that our first priority in prayer must be the glory
of our Father.  After that point, the power of our holy God, full of
glory, power, and might, becomes the energy source we can tap into to
claim Jesus’ promise for us in Luke 11:9, to “ask, and it will be given to
you.”  When our minds are first and foremost on glorifying God with our
hearts, souls, and minds (Matthew 22:37), then the Holy Spirit will surely
invade our minds with a desire for God’s will.  When our will then becomes
God’s will, we truly will receive anything we ask in prayer (Psalm 37:4)!
Let’s be as a church, then, persistent, as the man was in Luke 11:5-7 with
his sleepy friend at midnight, to seek great things from God, focused
first and foremost on His glory.  We will never cease to be amazed at the
results!
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Hymn of the Day: #516, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder”
I promised I’d send this!

James Black, the writer of this hymn, was a Methodist Sunday-school
teacher who was deeply disturbed one day in the 1880′s when one young girl
in his Sunday school class came up absent when he was taking attendance in
class.  When he investigated the situation and visited her house, he found
out she had pneumonia and was unlikely to survive.  Black used the
circumstance of a simple lack of response to a roll-call to consider what
is by any account a far deeper tragedy: a failure to hear one’s name
called when the Lamb’s Book of Life is opened, the book that contains all
the names of the redeemed at the end of time.  (Source: The Christian
History Institute)

Are you sure your name will be called one day?  If not, let me know and we
can “get sure” together.  But what really caught my eye as we begin our
journey together is the last verse of the hymn, where we’re called to
“labor for the Master from the dawn till setting sun/ Let us talk of all
His wondrous love and care.”  There’s a great day of rest coming, but how
much work there is to do in the Master’s fields right now!  We were
talking at Deacons Meeting last night about the incredible quantities of
hay to make right now and how little time there is to get it done.  How
much more work does the Kingdom have to be finished before the Lord takes
us home!  We need to be ready, to be working, and specifically to be
working in areas where the Lord has called us to take advantage of
opportunities He has set before us.
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Things to Remember:
Tonight– Worship at 6:15; Business Meeting at 7:00 p.m.
Tomorrow– Kicks for Christ, 7:00 p.m., in the basement.
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Upcoming Messages:
Tonight (Wednesday, June 20): “If You Can’t Say Anything Nice”
                                 I Kings 12:6-11
Sunday, June 24: a.m. “Our Christian Tightrope”  II John 4-11
                 p.m. “Life’s Painful Crossroads” Ruth 1:1-14
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In all we do, to God be the glory, great things He hath done!
Have a great week!

Pastor Brian