I Bid Your Prayers

 

Your prayers are requested for the blog's founder the Rev. Edward F. Lundwall who will undergo aorta valve surgery soon. Ed will turn 93 on June 18. Please pray for this servant of the Lord Jesus.

Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need; We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy servant Ed for whom our prayers are offered. Look upon him with mercy; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; preserve him; and give him patience. In thy good time, restore him to health, and enable him to lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally he may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Edward F. Lundwall, Jr. is a retired Army Chaplain and a veteran of the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. He and his late wife, Marionette, were Baptist home missionaries for nine years. They have three children, five grandchildren, and one great grandchild.


Alice C. Linsley, Administrator

Diggers

Hope Ellen Rapson

With sweaty palms and rusty spades

Diggers hope to find and drink,

Waters that quench their cravings…

Beauty, brawn, brains, and a bounty…

Only to discover thick tepid liquid,

Tasting of darkness, death, and dirt.

One broken heart, filled with thirst,

Unquenched by Jacob’s well…

Prompted---asked for a running stream…

A clear, continual life-giving artesian

Only of the Holy Spirit’s making,

Discovering fresh faith in “I am He.”

With sweaty palms and rusty spades

Still diggers search to find and drink,

Waters to quench those cravings…

With broken hearts and unfilled thirst,

Some come to the eternal current,

Fresh and flowing from the great “I Am.”

My empty heart, filled with thirst,

Unquenched by acts of my own will

Convicted---drank from the saving stream,

The cool, continual renewing well

Only of the Holy Spirit’s flowing

From faith in the Everlasting Man.

Related: Life Changing Worship

Life Changing Worship

 

"But the hour is coming and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth." Jn. 4:23-24

Hope Ellen Rapson

The Samaritan women came to the well seeking the gratification of her thirst, performing an activity that led to her survival as woman in her culture, and escaping the shaming eyes of society. She had lost sight of the God she claimed she worshipped. Jesus restored her relationship by sweeping away her three great distractions.

The first distraction is the craving for physical gratification. In her case it was water in a parched land, but it could have been sex, drugs, alcohol, even food. 

The second is the desire to acquire material things. The Samaritan woman desired a marriage that would provide her those things in her culture…a home, its furnishings, financial security…had led her into two legal marriages followed by three illicit relationships. 

The third distraction was her the hope for the status, significance, and acceptance all of which she had lost, forcing her to draw water in the heat of the noonday sun away from the community of women that would gather there in the cool of the day.

Jesus redirected her focus from what the world offers to what God freely gives---the ability to walk in his loving presence and provision and practices everyday as an act of worship. Her life changing worship led to the transformation of her whole village.

In this present hour, are believers being transformed by the Holy Spirit and walking in visible, practicable ways showing the world what true worship of God is? Or are they so involved in the distractions of the world, they have lost sight and love of the Father?

Jesus said, "But the hour is coming and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth." Glorify the Father in undistracted worship.

Related reading: Who Was Photini?