Happy New Year Beloved! It’s so exciting to start something new! Someone once said this was nothing more than the time to get a new start on an old habit… 🙂 Unfortunately that’s often the way it goes! I pray the Lord will help us pick up some better habits and drop some bad ones in 2023. One thing is certain, we will fight the flesh AND rest in the accomplishments of Christ in 2023! Let’s pray that this be the year of our Lord in which He returns to physically recreate and establish the Kingdom of God and destroy all sin for all eternity! Maybe your resolution is a bit less dramatic, like to stop griping about taxes or the weather or the price of gas or the political state of our country!!? Mine is always to NEVER take my resolutions too seriously! Once I set out with all my resolutions, I eventually fail in the keeping of such grand ideals since nothing is ever totally in my control and while my spirit is willing, my flesh is weak. I hear and feel the calling to repentance and faith every day as I await the 2nd coming!! My obedience to Jesus and my desire to please Him just keeps growing year by year as I dwell upon His love and the gospel. Obedience prompted by gratitude and love is still my greatest desire in walking with Jesus! It’s just so sweet to trust in Jesus!
It has been a privilege and honor to serve Christ at OGBC this past year of 2022. Your elders are praying through many new challenges for 2023 and we covet your prayers. Let me mention just one – the church will present a list of inactive members to love and pray toward reconciliation and reconnection within our body at our first business meeting.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us.
1 John 2:19
Please pray that Christ will help us as we work through this inactive list! These are more than just names on a page, and our desire is to love our members well and please our Bridegroom Jesus! We cannot love and encourage those we do not know or those who refuse to walk and worship among us. We can play at “having church” or we can be followers of Christ covenanted together invested in one another’s life, but we’re not pleasing God if we’re not honest about authentic church membership and participation in the body.
Here’s where things are headed in worship – Bro. Adam will lead us on Sunday mornings through Luke the first quarter of 2023 and then over to Jonah the 2nd quarter. He will take a break in summer and then back to Luke in the 3rd quarter and end the year in Philippians! Can I just say how much I appreciate Adam and his sweet family! Adam, we love you brother, and we are thankful to God, He has put your family into our lives at OG!! Adam will lead us on Wednesday nights through a series of messages around the Redemption Story beginning with Genesis and working through the Bible pointing everywhere to Jesus, our Redeemer! Wednesday nights will offer separate gatherings for the kids and youth starting this month – the Children will begin a fun, Christ-centered, insightful series of Theology and the youth will begin excavation into the scriptures to discover the true knowledge of God. The kids and youth will have Wednesday night classes that run concurrently with the school calendar and then we will all gather back up for family worship on Wednesday nights during the summer break.
Speaking of Family Worship, we pray yours is thriving! We have an abundance of resources to help your family move in this direction if you’re still on the fence or struggling with a way to do this in the home with your loved ones. Make 2023 a year to press into the Word and prayer collectively and privately. Make it a year to work toward a heart of gratitude and thus press into pleasing the Lord because He is worthy of all our devotion! Make it a year to live at peace with everyone so as it depends on you. Make it a year to reconcile with family and those you may have offended in your circles. Make it a year to humble ourselves and confess our sins and find Christ to be our all in all. His life for ours to His glory is what everyone on this planet needs in 2023. Are you ready to proclaim the good news of our Redeemer?
Blessed New Year!
Bro. Tony
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