Sermon Notes from Sunday, Feb. 2: Hebrews 3:7-19 contrasts rebellion and rest. Rebellion flows from and results back in a hard heart. Rest is that place of fulfillment, satisfaction, and trust. Resistance to rest is the struggle we all face. I'll be unpacking some of this and we will be partaking of the Lord's Supper at 4141 Ministries . All are welcome at the table who come to partake of the symbols of grace! I will be continuing some bible studies on prayer at 10 for those who wish to join our small group bible study.

Benediction and Blessing : May it be a day full of grace for you and may you taste the grace of each moment upon your tongue and may your tongue speak grace to all you meet. May God's grace be within you and flow through you. Amazing grace, grace greater than all our sins, sweet grace, transforming grace, amazing grace.
Listen

Challenge: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God." – Micah 6:8 (New International Version (NIV))

Inspiration:  We don't always "feel" inspired, but we keep on doing what we did when we knew the experience of inspiration and motivation. We keep on because that which inspired us is still within us. We keep on because in that moment on the mountain we looked around and saw the big picture … and it was truth. We keep on because the vision and the cause is greater than our own mood and desire. We keep on because we know that in the movement toward the prize, the inspiration will come again and we shall rise. We keep on. Keep on.   Listen Now

Recent Tweets
And a wonderful new bluegrass tune to bring it home to the heart. Listen Here.

Access is not charity. Neighbors just act like neighbors and assume, " if you're here, you're family" – like Olive Garden #FresnoBRT

Exactly what does "Love your neighbor as yourself" mean to you? #FresnoBRT

Tom Sims #FresnoBRT The ultimate social engineering = ROADS.

Building roads through cities always involves social engineering. Also – Interstate System — Roads=Social Engineering #FresnoBRT

Retweeted Christine Barker (@cmichellebarker): reminder of what #FresnoBRT is about. "We have built this city for cars. We have 2 start building this city 4 people"  Click for More!

Retweeted Rebecca Plevin (@rebeccaplevin):

Thanks @FresnoBee for featuring my @KVPR story about air pollution and kids' health on today's editorial page! Click to Read.

Quotes

"Jesus repudiated the weapons of force and substituted the weapons of good will. " – E Stanley Jones
Jesus repudiated the weapons of force and substituted the weapons of good will. The world must follow him at this point or perish. The Spirit of Christ as the dynamic of this new Kingdom repudiates force and uses the healing forces of love. But that does not mean acquiescence to evil. Evil is resisted from a higher level. Mahatma Gandhi gave the world a glimpse of the possibilities of this weapon . . . He has shown us a technique by which evil may be resisted and how a group or nation may attain its objectives without recourse to the barbarities of war. -From "Christ's Alternative to Communism" by E. Stanley Jones

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength." ― Ralph W. Sockman

Tom Sims shared Frederick Buechner's status.

“In the early centuries of the church, leprosy meant isolation, uncleanness, and death.
A church father named Basil had an idea: "What if we build a place to love and care for lepers? They don't have money. They don't even have to pay for it. We'll raise the money."

"One of the most famous sermons in that century was by his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (also a church father), and it was to raise money for this place to take care of leprosy. This is what Gregory said: "Lepers have been made in the image of God. In the same way you and I have, and perhaps preserve that image better than we, let us take care of Christ while there is still time. Let us minister to Christ's needs. Let us give Christ nourishment. Let us clothe Christ. Let us gather Christ in. Let us show Christ honor."

"That was the beginning of what would come to be known as hospi­tals. The Council of Nyssa (the same council that affirmed the Nicene Creed) decreed that wherever a cathedral existed, there must be a hos­pice, a place of caring for the sick and poor. That is why even today many hospitals have names such as "Good Samaritan" or "Good Shep­herd" or "Saint Anthony." They were the world's first voluntary, chari­table institutions.” – Buechner

"Many people have their consciences trained to be sensitive to the very marginal sins and shortcomings, and not be at all acute to central and fundamental sins." – E. Stanley Jones

Musical Meditations

A little bit of sweet bluegrass for your heart this morning. Do what you can today to take care of your hobos and others. Give some love away and let your heart bleed a little – That's what hearts were designed to do.

"Hobos In The Roundhouse" by Monroe Crossing 25Jan2013  - Listen!

The years go by so much faster than they used to. Days start with great expectations and we accomplish less than we set out to accomplish and sometimes more and usually more than we think and we step back and scratch our heads with wonder. We've come farther than we think and somewhere along the line we've learned to live with the paradoxical, quizzical, quintessential mysteries of coming and going, gaining and losing, moving and standing still. We lose track of time and find ourselves at curious peace with the situation. We live in the flow and know that we cannot set the course of the river. We can resist or we can rest in the grace of the moment, the grace of God. We can breath deeply of the awesome vastness of limitless possibilities and inevitable mortality. We are so tiny and we are so large. We were lost, but we are found. We wandered and now we are at home. We do not know where the time goes, but we have been blessed to be found in this time and to live out our purpose in time as part of a greater dream.

JUDY COLLINS – "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" LIVE 2002 – Listen!

Perspective, like maturity, cannot be rushed. We see "Both Sides Now" once we've had the time and attention to pay attention and … when we really see, we know that there is much more to see than we know or can know. And by the way, once you've been in the cloud and see it for what it is, you can still step back and enjoy the illusion and allusion of it because we really don't know the clouds as well as we think we do. Live with wonder. Embrace the mystery. Stand in awe of God today and all that God has made. Life is good and we really don't know it yet, at all!!!

JUDY COLLINS – "Both Sides Now" with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops 1976  - Listen!