ELEVATION NORTH has NEWS for YOU!

“I CAN’T BRAG about my love for God because I fail Him daily, but I CAN BRAG about His love for me because it never fails!” ~ (unknown) There’s an old song that says in its last stanza:  “Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God above, Would drain the ocean dry, Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Tho’ stretched from sky to sky.  O love of God, how rich and pure!  How measureless and strong!  It shall forevermore endure – The saints’ and angels’ song!”  (lyrics written by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai)  What a beautiful picture of how we should feel about God’s love!  That song is a picture, indeed, of us writing with more ink than we can fathom on more parchment than we can visualize, with more pens than we can hold in our hands to write with – our whole life long!  While perhaps we cannot dip our pen into an ocean of ink, yet our love for our God should be so deep that His love should be our song every day!  All day long … unendingly … into eternity where we will sing praises to Him forever and ever and ever!  It’s so true that God’s love never fails.  Just about when we think we are at the end of our rope in a situation or relationship, God’s love comes walking in and takes our slipping hand and pulls us up to safety.  His love rescues us and restores what’s gone bad.  His love redeems us from what we so deserve and it covers a multitude of our failures and our sins.  Just when we think we’ve been at something for such a long time and we feel as if nothing is ever going to change … God’s love comes walking in and things start happening!  New things come into place, foundations are built upon, seed that’s been planted begins to sprout and suddenly grows like crazy!  God’s love brings people right to us and it becomes second-nature to just share His love with them.  A love like His is not hard to share, after all!  It should be the easiest thing in the world, because after all … we know what it did and does for us, even though we cannot fully fathom it!  What others do with that love then, is ultimately up to them.  But they’ve been gifted with the opportunity to make the most important decision they will ever make – accepting, or rejecting the love of God.  A love like God’s makes us feel valued in a world that holds little value for life or anything sacred.  While the world tells us we are nothing … God’s love says that we are everything to Him.  Sending His only Son for us is proof of just how valuable He thinks we are!  God’s love reveals to us one more piece of His heart the closer we get to Him.  Our response to that amazing love brings His invitation to draw ever closer.  So close that we begin to see and understand things about God that we never actually grasped before.  We not only experience that unfailing love, we begin to sense His very heartbeat for humanity.  A love that would go to the ends of the earth and back, namely, Calvary, to save mankind from themselves and ending up in the pit of hell for all of eternity.  A love that has never diminished down through the ages.  Kingdoms have risen and fallen, but His still moves forward.  The very essence of His love cannot quit on us, give up on us, or push us away.  His love compels Him to pursue us, captivate us, and hold us in His embrace.  In that closeness, His love engages us in joining Him on His quest to finish what He started so long ago.  His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as in heaven – that’s what He wants.  And He wants us to want it to!  Things are changing, people are searching.  They are hungry and thirsty for more than the world can offer.  That’s where we come in: to make ourselves available and active in helping God with the unfinished business of His Kingdom work that still remains to be done.  It’s time, dear people!  It’s time to start bragging about the love of God!  (In the good sense of the word, you know!)  It never fails!


WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK . . .

TODAY, SUNDAY, SEP 29:
10:00 A.M. - PRAISE & WORSHIP
10:30 A.M, - KIDZONE CHURCH

WED/THU BIBLE "DOING", OCT 2 & 3 at 7:00 P.M.:
WED - Delving deeper into the book of Hebrews at the church
THU - Continuing in the book of I Peter at 905 El Dorado Street SE

NEXT SUNDAY, OCT 06:
10:00 A.M. - PRAISE & WORSHIP / WORLD DAY OF COMMUNION
10:30 A.M. - KIDZONE CHURCH

COMING UP:
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13th at 1:30 p.m. - Our ANNUAL PUMPKIN PATCH CHURCH FAMILY OUTING
at Oakview Nursery - call us at (507) 363-3099 for more details!

 ELEVATION NORTH SPOTLIGHT!

In our current emphasis on the Unfinished Kingdom work that God has called us to help Him with, we are encouraging EACH ONE to REACH ONE!  For the past few weeks, many of you are catching that vision and inviting others to church with you!  A few weeks ago, a lady invited her cousin.  Now that person has invited her daughter to church and to the upcoming Women of Faith Conference!  And, she is going to invite her sister to the conference, as well!  See what happens when EACH ONE – REACH ONE takes place?  God’s unfinished business on earth starts to get accomplished!  It’s an exciting thing to be at work where God is at work, isn’t it?  Again, we challenge all of you in the body of Christ here at Elevation North … EACH ONE – REACH ONE!  Remember the Great Commission?  Let’s do our part – and see what God will do! 

REMEMBER . . . “God loves us, not because we are lovable but because He is love; not because He needs to receive but because He delights to give." ~ C.S. Lewis

Serving Christ Joyfully . . .

Pastor Doug and Debbie