The theme for our stewardship program beginning on November 7 is titled “Grow as Stewards through Faith, Love and Hope!” In his letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul wrote, “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:3).
God gives us faith, love, and hope – virtues essential for our lives as Christian stewards. Each week during this three-week program, we will look carefully at what the Bible teaches about faith, love, and hope.
In week one (November 7), we will look at how it is through faith that we have access to God’s grace and a new relationship with God. Faith gives us peace with God (Romans 5:1), and Paul says in our theme verse that faith produces work. Faith leads to action. Through faith, we are given power to work for God’s purposes. With the eyes of faith, we can see that God is gathering people into Gods family through our work at New Hope. We are seeing some lives changed in the direction of real growth in the Spirit of Christ.
During the second week (November 14) we will focus on love. Love is working to help others become what God created them to be. The source of love is God. “Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (1 John 4:11-12). God’s love has brought together a strong fellowship here in New Hope. In response to God’s love for us, we give freely of our time, talents, and money to help others, to bring them into a relationship with Jesus that puts their feet on the right path and brings them into God’s family.
The third and final week (November 21) we will focus on hope. Because Jesus was raised from the dead we celebrate our hope that life can be filled with joy and peace now and on into eternity with Jesus. We give ourselves to joining God and working with hope for what he is doing in Port Orange and beyond.
I want all of you to be in worship and in Bible study as we focus on the theme “Grow as Stewards through Faith, Love and Hope!”
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