Thursday, March 27, 2014

Sparks Highlights 3-26-14



****Sparks Highlights****    Besides showing us His Holiness, His Power, His Provision, His Wisdom/Teaching, Jesus is our Healer.  He is often referred to as the Great Physician.   Jesus, God Incarnate who is our Creator, also can heal all our sickness.  Crowds would often flock to Jesus to heal their sicknesses – blindness, deafness, muteness, lameness, leprosy, and years of bleeding.  His touch would heal them, His words would heal them.  But you know what our greatness sickness is?  Our sin.  Jesus is the Healer of our greatness sickness because He has taken the punishment of our sins upon Himself – that is the antidote, the medicine, for our sickness.    Each time Jesus would heal an infirmity, He would note that it was the person’s faith that would heal them – make them whole, and then Jesus would challenge them to depart and sin no more.  See, each person’s problem was not just a sickness of body, but more the sickness of their sinful heart.  Jesus didn’t just take the time to heal their bodies – with doing that He showed His power as God, but more powerful than that, is when He told them their sins were forgiven them.  Only God – our Great Physician – can heal our sinful hearts.  But as Jesus said, it takes faith to accept Him as our healer, and a willingness to sin no more by giving Him our hearts.  Sure, after we put our faith in Him, we are not perfect in that we still sin, but at that point we should have the concern to confess that sin, and as the Bible tells us, He is faithful and just to forgive us that sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  We still need our Great Physician to heal our hearts then, too!
You are welcome to join us anytime at Sparks!    You can also check out the AWANA program at           www.fbc.littletonil.org.    
Mrs. Jennifer Schroeder, Mrs. Carol Sheley, Mrs. Barb Stein.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Sparks highlights 3.19.14



****Sparks Highlights****    Besides showing us His Holiness, His Power, His Provision, He also shows us His Wisdom.  Jesus was a great teacher during His time on earth.  He took every opportunity to teach.  Jesus taught the leaders of the day and the poor alike – He taught them about their sinful hearts and need for repentance.  He often taught His lessons in stories, in parables, that help us understand the meaning of His points.  Every meeting with people, every situation was used to teach about God’s love, mercy, judgment and grace.  Many modern-day people consider Jesus just a good teacher – but He is more than that.  He is our teacher that points out our sins and provides way of correction, restoration with God.  You can reject what a teacher tells you, but it doesn’t make it any less true when it is the truth.  Tonight we learned specifically on how Jesus taught us to pray and share through examples He has given us in Matthew 6.   We are not to just follow commands to recite words or just perform good deeds; we are to use these as examples of how to have the right heart that pleases God.  The first step of having a heart that pleases God is to have a repentant, humble heart that has been surrendered to God and the rest just comes naturally out of the heart that seeks Him.
You are welcome to join us anytime at Sparks!    You can also check out the AWANA program at           www.fbc.littletonil.org.    
Mrs. Jennifer Schroeder, Mrs. Carol Sheley, Mrs. Barb Stein.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Sparks Highlights 3-12-14



  We have learned Jesus is holy, so He can take our sins’ punishment, to be trusted as our Savior. Last week we learned that Jesus is powerful, so He can be trusted as our Savior.  This week, we are learning that Jesus is our provider so He can be trusted as our Savior.  How much food do you think it takes to feed 5000 men and their women and children?  With Jesus, our provider, it only takes 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish – and there were baskets left over.  Ask your Sparkie to tell you about this amazing account in John 6.   Jesus challenges us that we are to trust Him for our daily provision many times in the New Testament.  God provides for the sparrows, the lilies in the field and knows the very number of our hairs – so if He cares that much – should we be without ever?  No.  Just as a parent provides for his/her children, our Heavenly Father, God, provides everything for us – the air we breathe, the gravity to hold our feet on the ground, skills to earn a living for your family.  Everything is a gift from above from our Provider.  Philippians 4:19 says: And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 
What an amazing provision!
You are welcome to join us anytime at Sparks!    You can also check out the AWANA program at           www.fbc.littletonil.org.