Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n
First off Lord, I want to thank You for yet another wonderful Small Group gathering at the house last night.\u00a0 We\u2019re three weeks into the \u201cTreasures of the Transformed Life\u201d<\/em> study, and so far it\u2019s been an encouraging and inspiring series.\u00a0 And while the course material has certainly been an excellent starting point for our discussions, the tangential conversation topics that have evolved from that syllabus have been even more of a Blessing to the group.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s section was called \u201cJumping in With Both Feet\u201d<\/em>, and focused primarily on the role of our church family in our Walk with Christ, and also how important our presence is for that family to thrive.<\/p>\n Without going into a great deal of detail, the chapters this past week were dedicated to helping us understand how significant a commitment to our church membership truly is.\u00a0 The author draws a very distinct line between our \u201cattendance\u201d<\/em> and our \u201cpresence\u201d<\/em> at church, making the differentiation that when we\u2019re \u201cplugged in\u201d<\/em> to the other members of the congregation, we open ourselves to listening, caring and aiding them when they\u2019re in need.\u00a0 In addition, when we joyfully share the unique combinations of Spiritual Gifts that we\u2019ve each been Blessed with, we strengthen and expand the Body of Christ, which in turn aids us in growing our faith, and in showing Your light to others.\u00a0 The Apostle Paul wrote of this relationship in his Epistle to the Romans:<\/p>\n \u201cFor as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,\u00a0so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.\u00a0Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;\u00a0if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;\u00a0the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.\u201d \u2013 Romans 12:4-8 (ESV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our group last night was an excellent example of what Paul described; coming together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and sharing the encouragement, support and perspective that Your intimate presence in our lives brings about.<\/p>\n Heavenly Father,<\/p>\n All-in-all Lord, last night was another wonderful, inspired gathering, and I thank You for bringing us together once again to dig deeper into our relationships with You.\u00a0 Please continue to guide us in Your will, that we may grow both as Your Blessed Children, and as members of the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n In Jesus\u2019 Name we pray,<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![Pin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! First off Lord, I want to thank You for yet another wonderful Small Group gathering at the house last night.\u00a0 We\u2019re three weeks into the \u201cTreasures of the Transformed Life\u201d study, and so far it\u2019s been an encouraging and inspiring series.\u00a0 And while the course material has certainly been an […]<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1123,2039,168,256,419,473,1540,1652,770,286,132,219,1727,43,915,610,1535,508,361,2036,1746,1972,541,15,173,42,208,1507,59,457,534,686,444,593,916,669,976,737,475,271,269,222,2035,2034,104,682,760,84,845,495,55,2040,217,41,92,10,545,796,1965,1917,95,1834,1606,86,764,917,2037,476,544,114,1265,1966,697,738,1019,2038,663,481,504,378,379],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-apostle-paul","tag-attendance","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-blessing","tag-brother","tag-brothers-and-sisters","tag-brothers-and-sisters-in-christ","tag-caring","tag-child","tag-children","tag-church","tag-church-family","tag-courage","tag-dear-lord","tag-different","tag-dig-deeper","tag-discussion","tag-encouragement","tag-encouraging-and-inspiring-series","tag-epistle-to-the-romans","tag-esv","tag-example","tag-faith","tag-father","tag-focus","tag-gift","tag-gods-presence","tag-grace","tag-grow","tag-growing","tag-guide","tag-happy","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-helping","tag-house","tag-individual","tag-inspire","tag-inspiring","tag-jesus","tag-joy","tag-jumping-in","tag-jumping-in-with-both-feet","tag-light","tag-listen","tag-listening","tag-name","tag-need","tag-open","tag-perspective","tag-plugged-in","tag-pray","tag-presence","tag-relationship","tag-relationships","tag-serving","tag-significant","tag-small-group","tag-small-group-study","tag-spirit","tag-spiritual-gifts","tag-starting-point","tag-strength","tag-support","tag-tangent","tag-tangential-conversation","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-thank-you","tag-treasure","tag-treasures-of-the-transformed-life","tag-understand","tag-unique","tag-used","tag-walk-with-christ","tag-wednesday","tag-week","tag-will","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Jumping-into-the-Waves-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-oj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1509,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2F%3Fp%3D1507&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F10%2FJumping-into-the-Waves-1-Cropped.jpg&description=Inspirations+from+Phather+Phil+-+Jumping+In\"){kind=link}