Grace News 03/24/2020
In light of the tighter restrictions just announced by Governor Evers, Grace Community Church is now adding to the cancellation list ALL in-person group meetings. This means that only essential persons will be present for day-to-day operations and even for the live streaming we will do on Sunday mornings. However, our online opportunities WILL GO ON. This Sunday you can expect improvement in the sound. Also, Kurt is working to provide an additional viewing option of the live stream through you tube. You will receive instructions for use later in the week. We will continue to stream through facebook, but youtube may result in a better streaming experience.
While we are taking these actions, we want you to remain encouraged. Our Lord not only exercises control over our circumstances, he ordains our circumstances. We can rest in Him. Take heart from the following consoling truths.
Psalm 86:10 – For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.
One of the wondrous things that God does is to accomplish opposite purposes at the same time through the same set of circumstances. God uses the same overall circumstance to accomplish reversed purposes in the lives of people. The coronavirus is affecting everyone in the world, yet God is accomplishing two opposite aims. Simultaneously he is bringing both judgment and mercy. He is bringing judgment on the multitudes. In the midst of the chaos, the world is receiving a foretaste of eternal wrath. Yet God is at the same time bestowing mercy and grace upon those called by his name. Christians are given the opportunity to rest in the goodness of God. We have the opportunity to demonstrate faith and experience peace when multitudes are panicking over the possibility that they might get sick or even run out of toilet paper. The wondrous things that God does are not limited to making the sun shine and the crops to flourish. He also does wondrous things when he ordains a new kind of virus to sweep across the earth. While one group is hardened in their hearts, another cries out with a fresh sense of dependence upon God and of the manifold expressions of his mercies that are new every morning. Brothers and sisters, do not fear the virus and the panic. Rather fear God. Stand in awe of his greatness and wonder. And find peace. Pray as David did in 86:4: “Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”
Held Fast in His Grace,
Pastor Ross Layne