NO. LIVERMORE — At the Feb. 18 North Livermore Baptist Church service the congregation was welcomed by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service. The Invocation/Lord’s Prayer were recited. The hymns that were sung were “Footsteps of Jesus” “Take Time to be Holy”, and “Jesus Calls Us”. The service ended with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week. Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.
The sermon, titled “To Start Your Journey to the Cross” and scriptures from Luke 9:23-25. Pastor Bonnie began that everyone’s journey to the cross is different. We all begin it at different times in our lives. When we do begin that journey, it is an exciting time.
We all should be on a daily walk to the cross and it should mirror the walk that Jesus took as He went to the cross. What that means is that we all should be aware of the cross, our death, our burial, our resurrection, our ascension, and our seating with God in Christ. Most times, people will only hear about Jesus’ journey to the cross, but not their own. When Jesus was crucified at the cross, we also were too.
How do we begin our journey? Jesus tells us in our scripture passage, that we should deny ourselves to follow Him. We have heard before that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step, that one step is faith in Jesus.
We must repent of our sins from God for forgiveness of our sins. This is why Jesus went to the cross and died was because of our sins. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and that He was buried and rose again the third day so our sins would be covered forever.
We must believe in Jesus’ journey to the cross and what transpired at the cross and the resurrection. When you believe and accept it, you must deny yourself by surrendering your sin to Him. When you do that, you begin your journey in Him, because your old life was exchanged for His life.
After we begin the journey, we must stay connected to Jesus by taking up our cross daily. To do that, we must continue in our faith in Him. We must continue our life in faith in Jesus, following Him, obeying Him and letting Him live His life through us, by walking in the Spirit. We must remember that when Jesus was crucified, we also were crucified.
Sometimes we feel that we aren’t as connected with Jesus as we should be. That is because we think we can do all things without Him. We must completely give everything over to Him and follow Him, not this world. We also believe that Jesus won’t love us because we mess up.
But God sent Jesus to die on a cross so we can be reconciled with Him and be forgiven for all things. Nothing we do can change the love God has for His children. Too many times, we don’t feel close to Jesus, is because we don’t commit completely to Him.
Too many times we live our lives to please ourselves and not for pleasing God. When we become one of God’s children, we should aim to please Him in everything we do. We do that by reading His Word, praying to Him, obeying Him, sharing the gospel and what Jesus can do for others, giving, being kind, generous, and loving. We need to imitate who Jesus is in our own lives for others to see.
The question is, are you on the life journey with Jesus?
Announcements listed in the bulletin are that the congregation will be collecting canned Carrots for the Food Pantry in February. Bible Study: Tuesday at 1 p.m. You can email the church at nlbcmaine@gmail.com. Pastor Bonnie’s office hours are Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
