Sparks Highlights 4.2.14

****Sparks Highlights****    We have seen the amazing attributes of our Savior Jesus – He is Holy, He is Powerful, He is our Provider, He is our Teacher, He is our Healer, AND He is also our Shepherd.    The Bible tells us that we are alike sheep who have gone astray and Luke Chapter 15 tells us that Jesus, our Good Shepherd cares enough for each and every one us that He will come to find His sheep that have gone astray – one of the many.   What a comforting thought that Jesus cares for each of us to consider us that much loved that He would come to find one of the many!  Psalm 23 tells us, too, that the Lord is our Shepherd and we shall not be in want as He supplies our very most needs – even before we know it.   If you know anything about sheep, it is that they are helpless animals that need to be led to food and shelter and need to be protected from other animals that hunt them.  So just like sheep, we need a leader for our lives and a protector from the evil one Satan – who the Bible says hunts for whomever he can devour.   Jesus is that leader for our lives, but in order for Him to lead, we have to surrender our wills to His.  And not only is He the Shepherd, but He is also proclaimed to be the spotless Lamb of God as He was the sacrificial lamb for our sins.   Easter is a celebration of His sacrifice for us.  His death provided the payment of the penalty of our sins – what a Shepherd to do that for His flock!  Jesus took the penalty, but went on to conquer death as He rose again.  No one else is able to take our penalty and no one else has been able to conquer death.  What precious truth to consider this Easter Season – as that is what Easter is all about – His resurrection.   The grace of God provides us Jesus as the payment for our death sentence of sin, and that we can have eternal life if we have faith and accept Jesus as our Shepherd – our Savior.

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.

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.

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.