LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church June 5 service, the congregation was welcomed by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service. The Call to Worship was read and the Invocation/Lord’s Prayer was recited. The hymns that were sung were “Standing on the Promises”, “Wonderful Words of Life”, and “Break Thou the Bread of Life”. The service ended with Communion. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Janet Diaz is the pianist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.
The sermon, titled “God Gives Us Rest” and reading the scripture from Matthew 11:28-29. Pastor Bonnie began talking about how busy we are in our lives today. That even some people need to pencil in rest in their appointment books. There are scriptures in the Bible that state that God wants us to rest. To go to Him and seek rest in His arms. In our scripture this week, it tells us that all who are weary to go to Him and He will give us rest. In Psalms 23:2, it tells us that God makes us to lie down in green pastures. He is giving us a place to rest.
When we don’t get the rest in our lives that we need, it brings on another problem for us. We don’t have the energy to do the things we should. We can’t think clearly, work, or take care of things when we don’t rest. How can we serve God when we are tired? Even in the Lord’s Prayer it states “Give us this day our daily bread”, knowing that God will supply all our needs, including rest.
We need to stop thinking about things that have not come yet, things that we cannot change from the past, and live for today. If we take one moment as it comes, our mind is not racing so fast that we can’t enjoy the present. We need to put our mind and heart into a restful place. As we remain focused on God, our mind and heart are at rest in His arms. We are at peace. Too many times we focus on the storm and not the One who calms the storms, we see many hungry for life, but miss the Bread of Life that is Jesus. Many see the darkness that happened on that Friday of when Jesus was crucified, but not the brightness of the Son on Sunday. To open our eyes to all that God has for us, we must be resting in His arms.
We can recite the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not murder, adultery, steal, covet, etc. but we over look the one that tells us to honor the Sabbath Day, meaning, say no to work and yes to worship. When we worship, we are resting in the arms of Jesus, soaking in His glory.
Too many times we think God is too far away from us for us to rest in our lives. Even in Genesis, Adam and Eve was in the Garden, but so wasn’t God. They were never far from Him. That goes for us today. If you think God is far from you, then it is you that has moved away from Him, He is still there. We need to make the time with God each and every day. As Christians, we are not bound by sin anymore, we can rest in the arms of God.
God has given His servants, you and me, tasks to do in this life He has given us. To do what God has called us to do, we must be prepared for it. God will provide everything that we need, but we must also be rested up for those tasks. The first thing to doing anything with Jesus, is to accept Him as your personal Savior and go to Him for your rest.
Announcements listed in the bulletin were that the congregation will be collecting canned fruit for the Food Pantry in the month of June. Bible Study will be Tuesday at 1 p.m. June 5 after church, there will be a VBS meeting. Pastor Bonnie will be out of the office from June 13-15, she will be away at the ABC-USA General Board Meeting. No Bible Study on June 14. The AA meetings are held on Friday nights at the church.
For information, check out our website at northlivermorebaptistchurch.org. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Monday and Tuesday’s from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

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