From:
Date: January 30, 2021
Subject: It's January 30; Good Morning Union Special Sabbath Edition
“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24
Here’s what we have to help your rejoicing:
And that, my friends, is God’s Sabbath that I offer to you. including…
The Well- @ 10:40am in the Young Adult room at the Church. Join us as we fellowship, worship, and spend time in God’s word.
CVC- 9:15 and Noon. Pastor Harold continues his series called “Kaleo” and will be journeying for the next several weeks on the theme of righteousness in Jesus ALONE. Join us across the street or at one of the 6 other Adventist churches in the Lincoln area. Community is still a crucial part of the spiritual journey!
V2 @ 5:30 in the Youth SS room in the church (right beside “The Well” Room). Join us for 30 minutes as we bid farewell to the Sabbath with a discussion about the “Poverty Inc” film from last night.
Have a great Sabbath,
Pastor Rich
PS Thanks to all who helped this week as we delivered cookies to all the fire stations in Lincoln, and collected over 300 items of food and over $300 in cash to help the woman in need and the single mom with COVID and two kids with her needs. We even had some left over to bring to the Good Neighbor Center to help them provide for the needs of others. Thanks for your kindness and generosity. THAT is the "Union Spirit" and the Spirit of Union!
My favorite blog for this week: In keeping with yesterday’s GMU!!
“The Prodigal Son in the Key of F”
Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his father to
fork over his farthings. Fast he flew to foreign fields and frittered his
family’s fortune, feasting fabulously with floozies and faithless friends.
Flooded with flattery he financed a full-fledged fling of “funny foam” and
fast food.
Fleeced by his fellows in folly, facing famine, and feeling faintly fuzzy, he
found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy foreign farmyard. Feeling frail and
fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from
the fodder fragments.
“Fooey,” he figured, “my father’s flunkies fare far fancier,” the frazzled
fugitive fumed feverishly, facing the facts. Finally, frustrated from
failure and filled with foreboding (but following his feelings) he fled from
the filthy foreign farmyard.
Faraway, the father focused on the fretful familiar form in the field and
flew to him and fondly flung his forearms around the fatigued fugitive.
Falling at his father’s feet, the fugitive floundered forlornly, “Father, I
have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family favor.”
Finally, the faithful Father, forbidding and forestalling further flinching,
frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch forth the finest fatling and fix a
feast.
Faithfully, the father’s first-born was in a fertile field fixing fences
while father and fugitive were feeling festive. The foreman felt fantastic
as he flashed the fortunate news of a familiar family face that had forsaken
fatal foolishness. Forty-four feet from the farmhouse the first-born found a
farmhand fixing a fatling.
Frowning and finding fault, he found father and fumed, “Floozies and foam
from frittered family funds and you fix a feast following the fugitive’s
folderol?” The first-born’s fury flashed, but fussing was futile. The frugal
first-born felt it was fitting to feel “favored” for his faithfulness and
fidelity to family, father, and farm. In foolhardy fashion, he faulted the
father for failing to furnish a fatling and feast for his friends. His folly
was not in feeling fit for feast and fatling for friends; rather his flaw was
in his feeling about the fairness of the festival for the found fugitive.
His fundamental fallacy was a fixation on favoritism, not forgiveness. Any
focus on feeling “favored” will fester and friction will force the faded
facade to fall. Frankly, the father felt the frigid first-born’s frugality
of forgiveness was formidable and frightful. But the father’s former
faithful fortitude and fearless forbearance to forgive both fugitive and
first-born flourishes.
The farsighted father figured, “Such fidelity is fine, but what forbids
fervent festivity for the fugitive that is found? Unfurl the flags and
finery, let fun and frolic freely flow. Former failure is forgotten, folly is
forsaken. Forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortune.”
Four facets of the father’s fathomless fondness for faltering fugitives are:
1) Forgiveness
2) Forever faithful friendship
3) Fadeless favor, and
4) A facility for forgetting flaws
And that is our faithful and forgiving Father!