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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16TH —
Dorcas/Ruth Circle at 1:30 P.M. in Adair U.M.C.
Lenten Service in Adair U.M.C. at 7 P.M.
Prayer and Praise Service.We will use the New Testament book of James.
There will be singing, prayer, scripture and
teaching. Service Order is on page 878 in
our hymnal. The services are casual so come
as you are, and bring a friend. Gas prices are
soaring, so car pooling may be practical.
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THURSDAY, MARCH 17TH —
Deborah/Mary Circle meets in Casey U.M.C. - 2 P.M.
— • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • —HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY
• • IRISH BLESSING: • •
May love and laughter light your days
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours
wherever you may roam.
St. Patrick was actually Scottish and was saidto be either born in Scotland or Wales. His name
wasn’t even Patrick.
His birth name is Maewyn Succat.
At the age of 16, he was kidnapped and sold into
Irish slavery. Later he became a priest and took
the name Patricius, known as Patrick. It was his
calling to bring Christianity and Ireland closer
together. In point of fact, the Scottish should get
some credit on this day as well.
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SUNDAY, MARCH 20TH —
FIRST DAY OF SPRING.
THAT'S RIGHT, IT BEGINS TODAY.
NO, WE'RE NOT ALL DECKED OUT YET . . .. . . BUT SOON.
ADAIR-CASEY COMBINED SERVICES
IN ADAIR COMMUNITY CENTRE @ 9:30
SPRING CHICKEN DINNER 11 A.M.- 1P.M.
SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
COLOR: PURPLE
SCRIPTURE READINGS:
GENESIS 12:1–4
(The Message)
God initiates a covenant with Abram, and
Abram enters it by leaving his country and
family to start over where God leads.
1 God told Abram: "Leave your country, your
family, and your father's home for a land that
I will show you.
2 I'll make you a great nation and bless you.I'll make you famous; you'll be a blessing.
3 I'll bless those who bless you; those who
curse you I'll curse. All the families of the Earth
will be blessed through you."
4 So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left
with him. Abram was seventy-five years old
when he left Haran.
PSALM 121 (UMH 844)
(The Message)
1 I look up to the mountains; does my strength
come from mountains?
2 No, my strength comes from God, who made
heaven, and earth, and mountains.
3 He won't let you stumble, your Guardian God
won't fall asleep.
4 Not on your life! Israel's Guardian will never
doze or sleep.
5 God's your Guardian, right at your side to
protect you -
6 Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you
from moonstroke.
7 God guards you from every evil, he guards
our very life.
8 He guards you when you leave and when you
return, he guards you now, he guards you always.
ROMANS 4:1–5, 13–17
(The Message)
Abraham was made righteous -- not because
he did good things, but by a life bent on
trusting God.
1 So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our
first father in the faith, into this new way of looking
at things?
2 If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to
approve him, he could certainly have taken credit
for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not
an Abraham-story.
3 What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered
into what God was doing for him, and that was the
turning point. He trusted God to set him right
instead of trying to be right on his own."
4 If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you
deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.
5 But if you see that the job is too big for you, that
it's something only God can do, and you trust him
to do it-you could never do it for yourself no matter
how hard and long you worked - well, that "trusting
him to do it" is what gets you set right with God, by
God. Sheer gift.
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6 David confirms this way of looking at it, saying
that the one who trusts God to do the "putting every
thing right" without insisting on having a say in it is
one fortunate man:
7 Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off,
whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.
8 Fortunate the person against whom the Lord
does not keep score.
9 Do you think for a minute that this blessing is
only pronounced over those of us who keep our
religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you
think it possible that the blessing could be given
to those who never even heard of our ways, who
were never brought up in the disciplines of God?
We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing
what God did for him that Abraham was declared
fit before God?
10 Now think: Was that declaration made before
or after he was marked by the covenant rite of
circumcision? That's right, before he was marked.
11 That means that he underwent circumcision
as evidence and confirmation of what God had
done long before to bring him into this acceptable
standing with himself, an act of God he had
embraced with his whole life.
12 And it means further that Abraham is father of
all people who embrace what God does for them
while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet
unidentified as God's, in an "uncircumcised"
condition. It is precisely these people in this
condition who are called "set right by God and
with God"! Abraham is also, of course, father of
those who have undergone the religious rite of
circumcision not just because of the ritual but
because they were willing to live in the risky
faith-embrace of God's action for them, the way
Abraham lived long before he was marked by
circumcision.
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13 That famous promise God gave Abraham -
that he and his children would possess the earth
- was not given because of something Abraham
did or would do. It was based on God's decision
to put everything together for him, which Abraham
then entered when he believed.
14 If those who get what God gives them only get
it by doing everything they are told to do and filling
out all the right forms properly signed, that
eliminates personal trust completely and turns the
promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy
promise; that's a business deal.
15 A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and
with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will
never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in
the first place, simply a promise - and God's promise
at that - you can't break it.
16 This is why the fulfillment of God's promise
depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and
then simply embracing him and what he does.
God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only
way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who
keep the religious traditions and those who have
never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us
all. He is not our racial father - that's reading the
story backwards. He is our faith father.
17 We call Abraham "father" not because he got
God's attention by living like a saint, but because
God made something out of Abraham when he
was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read
in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up
as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first
named "father" and then became a father because
he dared to trust God to do what only God could
do: raise the dead to life, with a word make
something out of nothing.
JOHN 3:1–17
(The message)
Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night. Jesus
tells him, "You must be born again."
1 There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus,
a prominent leader among the Jews.
2 Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi,
we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No
one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts
you do if God weren't in on it."
3 Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me:Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible
to see what I'm pointing to - to God's kingdom."
4 "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born
who has already been born and grown up? You
can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born
again. What are you saying with this
'born-from-above' talk?"
5 Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it
again. Unless a person submits to this original
creation - the 'wind hovering over the water' creation,
the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a
new life - it's not possible to enter God's kingdom.
6 When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you
can look at and touch. But the person who takes
shape within is formed by something you can't see
and touch - the Spirit - and becomes a living spirit.
7 "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you
have to be 'born from above' - out of this world, so
to speak.
8 You know well enough how the wind blows this
way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees,
but you have no idea where it comes from or where
it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone
'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of
God."
9 Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this?
How does this happen?"
10 Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel
and you don't know these basics?
11 Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you.
I speak only of what I know by experience; I give
witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes.
There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet
instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you
procrastinate with questions.
12 If I tell you things that are plain as the hand
before your face and you don't believe me, what use
is there in telling you of things you can't see, the
things of God?
13 "No one has ever gone up into the presence of
God except the One who came down from that
Presence, the Son of Man.
14 In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent
in the desert so people could have something to
see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son
of Man to be lifted up -
15 and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and
expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.
16 "This is how much God loved the world: He
gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is
why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing
in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending hisSon merely to point an accusing finger, telling the
world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the
world right again."
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DON'T FORGET — CHICKEN DINNER AT 11 A.M.
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Pastor Lynn's and Naomi's day off.
Office is closed today.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 22ND —
Morning Bible Study in Adair U.M.C. - 9 to 11 A.M.
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Lenten Worship Service in Casey U.M.C. at 7 P.M.
From Book of James.Service Order is on page 878 in our hymnal.
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THURSDAY, MARCH 24TH —
MORNING BIBLE STUDY
IN CASEY U.M.C. - 9:30 TO 10:30 A.M.
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Naomi will be out of the office today.
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Keep the people of Japan in your prayers. The
magnitude of the March 11 earthquake and the
ensuing tsunami is unimaginable.
Reports from Italy's National Institute of
Geophysics and Volcanology estimated the
8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on
its axis nearly 4 inches.
Friday's powerful earthquake appears to havemoved the shoreline of the main island of
Japan over 8 feet. 30-foot walls of water swept
across rice fields, engulfed entire towns,
dragged houses onto highways, and tossed
cars and boats like toys.
The Earth's crust ruptured along an area about250 miles long by 100 miles wide, as tectonic
plates slipped more than 59 FEET, said Shengzao
Chen, a USGS geophysicist. This certainly gives
more credence to the view that all of the earth's
continents may have once been one land mass.
Thank you for all of the contributions you make
to our church life.
God Bless and Keep You,
Pastor Lynn