God remembers

"This is the account of Noah and his family..."  Genesis 6:9 is the next toledoth we look at, the next "this is the account of..."  We know the story of Noah and the flood, we know how it ends.  But Noah was in that story.  It rained for 40 days, and then he waited another 150 for the flood waters to recede.  He may have been about to give up hope.  And then we read this: "But God remembered Noah" (Gen 8:1).  This Sunday we are reminded in the sacrament of baptism that God remembers us.  May that knowledge be a comfort to all those who are dealing with difficult things this week.  Sunday, July 2, 2017, 10 a.m. at Ancaster Christian Reformed Church.

Public profession of faith, and then a baptism

Yesterday Noah deHaan and Gavin Street publicly professed their faith in Jesus and their desire to follow him. In doing this, Noah and Gavin accepted the promised that God had made to them in their baptism.






And then, Gavin and Natasha Street presented their baby, Madelyn Julie Street, for baptism. It's all grace!  It was a wonderful celebration.  Congrats to all of you!

Simple, but demanding

Jesus has one command for us.  Only one.  It's simple, but very demanding:  Love one another.  (John 13: 31-35) No qualifiers attached.

Lots happening at Ancaster Church this Sunday:  a couple of men are professing their faith; we celebrate both sacraments, Lord's Supper and the baptism of Madelyn Julie Street; and we'll hear how Jesus' command to love one another is playing out in our work with refugee sponsorship.  Join us, June 18, 10 a.m.

The Olive Press

We visited an olive press.  An olive press is made up of a mill stone and a YAM. YAM is translated as "sea." Cause a little one to sin and it would be better for you to have a mill stone around your neck and be cast into the YAM- not to drown, but to be crushed.
Isaiah : he was "crushed" for our iniquities.
Gethsemane  means olive press.

We are invited to connect the dots. As we do so, the richness of the Word of God touches us deeply.

Jarash

We will be in Israel for the remainder of our trip. We spent some time in Jarash where we saw the ceremonial gates. The apostle Philip lost his life for refusing to pass through such gates.

Green Pastures

Those green pastures didn't look so green to us folk from Ontario. This pic shows both those pastures and the paths of righteousness.  Those paths crisscross the mountains. Wed, May 31.

Pyramids

May 24.  My blog postings are all out of order. It was at dinner tonight that a colleague helped me figure out a way to make things work.
We spent a day at the pyramids when we first arrived in Egypt.  Jacob would have seen those same pyramids when he came to Egypt with his family.