One worthy gift

God there are days when we gather for worship in this community when it's easy to acknowledge your beauty but nearly impossible to find any within ourselves.

We come to you broken in so many ways. The weight of wrong choices or difficult circumstances, the burden of wrecked relationships or dwindling resources -- sometimes these things make it hard for us to find value and worth within ourselves.

And yet you see beauty within us, Lord.

You have seen us for who we are and loved us in spite of it all, and in this we find so much hope.

We pray today that we might claim that which you love within us, and relentlessly seek out things to love within others. May we see through brokenness and frailty and circumstance and struggle to know others as creatures made in your image, for your love.

May our lives reflect this one beautiful and worthy gift: that we love others as we are being loved by you.

Three great quotes from today's worship

"There is no point in getting into an argument about this notion of loving. It is what Christianity is all about -- take it or leave it. Christianity is not about ritual and moral living except insofar as these two express the love that causes both of them. We must at least pray for the grace to become love." - Brennan Manning, "A Glimpse of Jesus," quoted by Matt Brown in his teaching today.

"Love is so boring to people who crave controversy." - Matt Brown

"Easter was our Independence Day from sin and death." - Matt Brown (who added, over lunch, "We should have fireworks on Easter!")

Meet a modern-day Paul

by Marty Linn

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' " Acts 20:35 (New International Version)

My perspective on the life of the apostle Paul is that he was so totally convicted by his experience of Jesus that he gave up everything to embrace a life of serving the world and encouraging everyone he encountered to follow the Way of Jesus. He became completely reliant on God for all provisions for his life and God provided it to Paul through God's people.

Recently I have gotten to know a modern-day Paul. Some of you met him when he was at Connections in February: his name is Wadsene.

Wadsene lives with his father, who was a preacher and never had much money with which to support his family. When Wadsene was a child, they sometimes had only mangos to eat for an entire week at a time. Wadsene said that growing up he understood that in order of prominence, God was first, the Haitian President was second, and missionaries were third. The reason missionaries were so prominent? They could bring their families something to eat other than mangos.

Wadsene is a US citizen but he chooses to stay in Haiti and serve his people. He is the administrator for the ministry called Horizontal Love Ministries, which offers food, medical care, and other services to elderly persons in the city of Les Cayes and south Haiti. From time to time, HLM brings the individuals they serve together. They play dominoes and other games and enjoy each other's company. When it’s time to go home, none of them want to leave.

All of the workers at HLM are volunteers; Wadsene says that he is somewhat embarrassed at times because he cannot pay them. Wadsene is actively involved in the care giving as well, and rides his bike to visit the various individuals who receive HLM's services.

He tries to have a few dollars to give when he visits someone. One time when he was visiting a 70 year old man he didn’t have any money, and Wadsene apologized for not having anything to give him. The old gentleman told him he shouldn’t apologize because just the fact that Wadsene was visiting him had changed his life. Seeing Wadsene visit, the people in his community had changed their perceptions of the older man and had begun to watch out for him and give him food. Wadsene says that even the smallest gesture or deed in Haiti is significant. Wadsene put it well: "I have a lot more than the boy with two fishes, and look what the Lord did with that!"

Wadsene was recently able to buy a small piece of land, and his dream is to build a 3 to 4 room house in which the people he serves can live.

I am grateful that Connections is already supporting this ministry but I also think we can do more. Haiti is a hidden corner of the world where this ministry may well be the only hope some people have to see Jesus. As we enthusiastically pursue growing the kingdom here, I propose we also consider doing the same there.

Matt Answers Monster Questions: Why did God make us?

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and when I ran out of ideas I asked my Thursday night small group what they thought. The universal sentiment was that they really don’t know either – some help they were.

However, we do know that God loves us. We know that God sacrificed a lot to save us from our sins. We also know that we are made in God’s image (though marred by original sin).

More interestingly, we know that the universe is a very large place and as beings that will live forever, we will have a lot of space to roam around in.

Many of us do not think that God made us because he was lonely. The closest thing that I can draw on is from my personal experience of having children. Karen and I did not have children because we felt lonely or incomplete. We had children as a natural outgrowth of who we are. Maybe the answer is as simple and as abstract as that.