Psalm 103 is a study in the forgiveness, patience, and boundless love of God. What a great reminder for us today. As you prepare for our time together this week in Psalm 103, read it and reflect on all God’s benefits (vs. 2). Get out a pen and paper and make an actual list! Let the psalm prompt you to recount his many works in your life. Then join us Sunday morning over on our livestream page at 10:45 to access the video....Keep Reading
What do you do when you come across hard times? Who do you talk to? How do you talk about it with them? For many of us this season has most certainly been a hard time. The fear of the coronavirus, the loneliness of social isolation, the anxiety of financial instability, the pain of losing loved ones. During hard times, our heavenly Father speaks to us through the Psalms and then, incredibly, we are invited to make those words our own. God uses the Psalms to teach us how we might respond back to God. In the midst of this present crisis, psalms of lament like Psalm 102 teach us what to do with all of our pain and confusion. ...Keep Reading
We are so eager to gather again for Sunday morning services and hope that can happen sooner than later. We sure miss you! But we also know that it will be a long time before it’s back to business-as-usual. Please pray for our ministry staff as we begin to plan. We’ve put together a team to think through the adjustments that will be needed so we can be ready as restrictions are lifted. We’re also planning for the precautions and measures we’ll need to take to make First Free a safe place. We’ll be updating you more as we develop plans but want you to know at the start that we are planning with the entire church in mind (especially those of you at high risk) and will continue to follow state and local guidelines regarding gathering sizes. Ron is leading this team and would be happy to receive your input....Keep Reading
Music has a way of recalling the clearest memories and creating the most powerful emotions. It can make you happy when you are sad, or sad when you are happy. The right song can transport you to another time; like how “Wipeout” takes me back to middle school birthday parties at the roller-skating rink. It has the power to take you back to your childhood or teenage years with the remembrance of joys or hardships you thought were long forgotten. In the same way praise calls us to remembrance and transformation. ...Keep Reading
Are you growing weary of this new normal? Now that the newness of change has worn off and the celebration of Easter is past, we find ourselves in need of endurance. The fatigue has set in, so where do we turn? Thankfully we aren’t left to ourselves! We find strong encouragement in the Psalms. This coming Sunday we’ll be in Psalm 100 where we see a reminder that the LORD is good and his steadfast love endures forever. That perspective can turn weariness into thankfulness. Especially when we consider the display of that love seen most clearly in Christ. ...Keep Reading
He is risen! He is risen indeed! We’ve just celebrated that good news on Easter Sunday; it’s only natural that we should deliver it to others. But how do we do that, given the circumstances? How do we share Christ without sharing COVID? As this pandemic has unfolded, Christian writers have produced scores of articles to help us think of new ways to reach out to those around us and share the gospel while maintaining social distancing. I’ll share one good one at the end of this post and offer a few of my own ideas. But perhaps methods are not our main issue....Keep Reading
Today is Good Friday. A day we get up close to death to prepare for the celebration of life in Christ. And this year we don’t have to try very hard to face the reality of death. Its shadow is all around us. We feel an abundance of loss thinking about how different Holy Week is this year. But Sunday’s still coming and the joy to be found in celebrating Christ’s victory over death is greater. It won’t feel like a “normal” Easter Sunday, but that may make its celebration that much sweeter. Take heart, when the world feels uncertain, our hope in Christ is firm....Keep Reading
Poetry is powerful. It engages both mind and heart. It uses a small number of words to convey big truths, imprinting them upon us with vivid imagery, making us feel and experience them. An image is indeed worth a thousand words. An imagination is worth a million. According to Dictionary.com, imagination is “the faculty…of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.” Imagination does not deal exclusively with things that are unreal, merely things that are not “present to the senses.” And therein lies its power. The faculties of sight and hearing and taste can only perceive the present, but imagination perceives past and future too....Keep Reading
The loss of not being able to gather with you is especially great as we think about entering Holy Week this Sunday. It’s a week full of rich traditions for First Free...Keep Reading
One of the ways Pastor Josh suggested for praying the Psalms was using the ACTS acronym—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Let’s see how we might use this method to pray Psalm 91. Take a pen and paper and first make some notes as you read this psalm before you begin to pray....Keep Reading