GOD’S MONEY AND YOU
GOD’S MONEY & YOU
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ummer is here and with it seems to come our best effort to take a break and relax. Summer vacations and ‘stay-cations’ are upon us. And even though we are looking to get away from things for a few days, life goes on. When we were trying to finance the new sanctuary loan in 2008, I had the opportunity to look through many of the old bank loan documents of Live Oak UMC. In those documents, I discovered that many men had signed personal guarantees toward the church’s loans. Wow. I could not help but think about the sacrifice those men (and their families) were willing to make. As I take a look around our campus today, I can see the result of the generosity and obedience of many people who came to Live Oak, loved Jesus and wanted the Word of God to continue to be taught in our community well beyond their time on this Earth.
BY JIM OTKEN
Our time is now. James 4:14 says that we are “just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” If we love Jesus and want the Word of God to be proclaimed while we are here and even when we are gone, we need to support Live Oak with our finances, with our service, and with our prayers. The world wants us to be concerned with what other people are doing, but Scripture says that one day we will appear before Christ and give an account (2 Corinthians 5:10). I hope we will be mindful that what we do today has a direct impact on our answer to Christ on that day. Be encouraged, trust God in all areas of your life, and ask Him for guidance in your support of Live Oak.
TO DO. NOT TO LET OTHERS DO. BY CAMERON MCKENZIE (Continued from page 8)
pared in advance for others to do. No Ephesians 2:10 says, “for we are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” To do. Not to let others do. When Jesus had a hungry crowd following him after a long day of healing and performing signs to the masses, what did he do? He didn’t send somebody else to go feed them, he didn’t acknowledge their hunger and then do nothing about it. He fed them. He did something about the problem at hand. Over and over in scripture Jesus is confronted with a problem, and his response is always the same, he does something about it. We are called to do the same. Jesus speaks to Phillip about this in John 14:12, I’d quote it here but, Instead, I will give you a chance to do something.
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LIVEOAKCHURCH | www.loumc.org | June 2019
