They say that every picture tells a story and so last week I
asked the ladies and gentlemen to bring in their favourite photographs and tell
us the story behind them. We had quite a collection, May had brought in a
photograph that her great-grandson had done for her, she said she had been feeling useless,
‘because you do when you get to my age!’ but the photograph had so encouraged
her and shown her that God has not finished with her, in His eyes she is not
useless, and she gave God the glory for what she is still able to do, which is
to be an encouragement to others.
Sandra showed us photograph of her husband holding their
adopted son on the first day they had him home and it reminded us that all
those who are God’s children are adopted into His family.
When
you read scripture do you try and picture it?
I read from John 1: In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things were
made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him
was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent
from God, whose name was John. This man came for a
witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He
was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that
Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into
the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the
world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not
receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become
children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
I
asked the ladies if they could see themselves in this picture, can you see
yourself in this picture, are you a child of God, adopted into His family? When
we become a child of God then we should make sure that we develop into what God
wants us to be. There is only one way in which we can belong to God and that is
through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. He took our punishment for our sins.
After
the wonderful collection of photographs we had last week I decided this week to
ask the ladies if they had ever been collectors of anything. The answers were
many and varied, stamps, paper weights, traction engines, keyrings, mugs, pens,
badges, fox ornaments and even reptiles. One of our ladies had some very interesting
stories about her and her sons reptile collection, she went into great detail
how they hatched out six boar constrictor eggs, and how they had all kinds of
reptiles the faces of the ladies sitting next to her were a picture!
I used to collect jugs, teddies, ducks and eggs, collecting eggs was my job when I worked on a farm. :) I found a book recently that had a collection of sayings, Ann Frank said “Whoever is happy will make others happy too”. We read in Luke about the tax collector, Zacchaeus, whose treasure was money and he had spent most of his time ripping people off in order to make himself rich. But when he met Jesus all that changed and he gave the money back with interest.
Dorie said
it reminded her of the song we sang when we were children so of course we had
to have a chorus of ‘now Zacchaeus was a very little man’ with actions.
It is
wonderful to collect things, to have an interest or hobby but when these things
take the place of Jesus in our hearts then we are in trouble. Would you be
willing to give up your treasure? Jesus asks us to forsake all and follow Him,
and we will have treasure in heaven. We can lose our earthly treasure, they can
get stolen or broken, but the treasure God has for us in heaven is everlasting
that is certainly worth giving everything up for. Matthew 6:Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves
break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
