Bulletin Announcements – 6 December 2015

4 December 2015
  • Sunday school Term 4 will finish on 13 December. We will have our End of the Year celebration on that Sunday. On 20 December, we will have holiday program and then we will have a break starting from 27 December.
  • To introduce our church to our community, we will be distributing Christmas cards and invitations to our church for residents throughout Strathfield, by a letterbox drop. We are looking for volunteers who can help out today. If you can help, please see Louis Wong.
  • Together with other local churches, our church will be part of the annual Christmas in Burwood Park outreach, to be held on Saturday Dec 12. We are looking for volunteers who can help with evangelistic chats with enquirers, kids’ activities, and setting/packing up. If you can spare an hour between 5-9pm, that would be appreciated. For more information see Louis Wong.

 

Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. – 1 John 4:10 NIV

In this one verse lies a multitude of truths. This is love: – John first seeks to correct an error, to explain a truth. It is easy for us humans to distort, especially God’s truths. not that we loved God, – You see, it is not our love that is the defining word. Our love at best is weak and puny. Oft, it is irrelevant as it chases the wrong things, idolatrous as it gives itself over to them. Our love becomes lust, greed, even Narcissus himself! Our imperfect selfish love could never be the final word. but that he loved us – Now, we begin to see love’s true picture. God who is perfect, pure, eternal, majestic, supreme, and selfless, will His love not be the same? and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. – Here then is love’s true meaning. It is a sacrifice! A giving over of one’s self for another but just not any other. It is the Lord Jesus, God’s Son, who now gives Himself over to death for your sins. This is love’s dying words, it’s crowning glory, it’s finis. That for you a sinner God’s Son would die and became your Saviour. An apt correction and fitting conclusion to love. Repent sinner of your wayward love and make your way instead to Jesus, the perfect and final expression of God’s love.

from Pastor Ariel