Kentwood United Methodist Church

06/26/2022

Today, I gave my last message to the congregations at Darlington UMC and Kentwood UMC.  Theses congregations welcomed my husband David and I with open arms and open hearts when we arrived at their doorsteps in July 2021.
I am grateful for their love an support over this past year and will miss each of them. While we may not see each other every Sunday, we are and will remain family.
Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you, and your families as we transition to our new home in Apollo Beach Florida, and I into a new position as the Director of Ministries for the United Methodist Church of Sun City Center.
Welcome Reverend Geoff Davis and his family as he begins his ministry journey with you. He brings wonderful gifts to share with you, and we know you will share yours with him and his beautiful family.
Be well my friends, and many blessings to you and your families as you begin this new journey.

06/26/2022

The majority of people do not see what is wrong, and the talk of a prophet like Jeremiah is nonsense. We never can face the things that are wrong, apart from God, without getting insane. If sin is a trifling thing and we can preach to the healing of people and bring peace on any other line, then the tragedy of the Cross is a huge blunder. To live a life hid with Christ in God means we see at times what men and women are like without God, from God’s standpoint, and it also means vicarious intercession for them, while they look upon us with pity.
Clear from me my hidden faults. Keep Your servant also from presumptuous sins. Oh that I could find You exhibiting in me Your peace and purity!
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: Why must we be clear about what is wrong before we can be made right? Why is it impossible to make peace where sin is present? Why is purity required for peace?

06/24/2022

When we are born again from above, quickened and raised up by God, we find it is possible to consider the lilies because we have not only the peace of God, but the very peace that characterized Jesus Christ. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The old way of doing things, the old fuss and fume are dead, and we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. In that new creation is manifested the very peace that was manifested in Jesus Christ.
When God raises us up into the heavenly places, He imparts to us the very purity of Jesus Christ. That is what the sanctified life means—the undisturbable range of His peace, the unshakeable, indefatigable power of His strength, and the unfathomable, crystalline purity of His holiness- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Question: Do I fuss and fume over every inconvenience or do I consider the possibility that they were put there to slow me down and cause me to see something important that I would have missed?

06/23/2022

Epochs and civilizations appear after a time to be flung on the scrap-heap by God in a strangely careless manner. The remarkable thing in the record of the Ages is that each Age ends in apparent disaster. The saint knows that God reigns, and that the clouds are but the dust of his Father’s feet and he has no need to fear. He feels assured that these catastrophic occurrences are but incidental, and that a higher peace and a purer character are to be the permanent result. History is fulfilling prophecy all the time.
The path of peace for us is to hand ourselves over to God and ask Him to search us, not what we think we are, or what other people think we are, or what we persuade ourselves we are or would like to be, but, “Search me out, O God, explore me as I really am in Thy sight.”

Reflection Questions: What does the downfall of dictators indicate about the effectiveness of peace that is imposed on people? What does history teach me about human attempts to make peace?
- Oswald Chambers

06/22/2022

After being born again a man experiences peace, but it is a peace maintained at the point of war. The wrong disposition is no longer in the ascendant, but it is there, and the man knows it is. He is conscious of an alternating experience, sometimes he is in ecstasy, sometimes in the dumps; there is no stability, no real spiritual triumph. To take this as the experience of full salvation is to prove God not justified in the Atonement.
To be a believer in Jesus Christ means realizing that what Jesus said to Thomas is true: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is not the road we leave behind as we travel, but the Way itself. By believing, we enter into that rest of peace, holiness, and eternal life because we are abiding in Him.
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: What kind of peace do we gain by force? What does it take to maintain that kind of peace? Why is agreement with God necessary for genuine peace?

06/21/2022

Reflected peace is the greatest evidence that I am right with God, for I am at liberty to turn my mind to Him. If I am not right with God I can never turn my mind anywhere but on myself. Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God’s providential permission? Having turned over, as it were, the boulders of your belief, do you still find no well of peace or joy or comfort—all is barren? Then look up and receive the undisturbedness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Above and in the facts of war and pain and difficulties He reigns, peaceful.
Before the Spirit of God can bring peace of mind He has to clear out the rubbish, and before He can do that He has to give us an idea of what rubbish there is.
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: What do selfish thoughts tell me about my concept of peace? What anxious thoughts do I need to clear from my mind before I can have peace with God and others?

06/20/2022

There are wonderful things about light, but there are terrible things also. When once the light of God’s Spirit breaks into a heart and life that has been perfectly happy and peaceful without God, it is hell for that one. Light brings confusion and disaster. When light comes all the things of the night tremble. The night of heathenism is being split up, not by the incoming of civilization, but by the witness of men and women who are true to God.
Our Lord uses the eye as the symbol of conscience in a man who has been put right by the Holy Spirit. If we walk in the light as God is in the light, that will keep our eyes focused, and slowly and surely all our actions begin to be put into the right relationship, and everything becomes full of harmony and simplicity and peace.
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: What has the light of the Lord revealed to me that is confusing, upsetting, or unclear? How does focusing on the Lord bring all that is blurry into a unified vision of peace and harmony?

06/19/2022

06/19/2022

We talk about the peace of Jesus, but have we ever realized what that peace was like? Read the story of His life, the thirty years of quiet submission at Nazareth, the three years of service, the slander and spite, back-biting and hatred He endured, all unfathomably worse than anything we shall ever have to go through; and His peace was undisturbed, it could not be violated. It is that peace that God will exhibit in us in the heavenly places; not a peace like it, but that peace. In all the rush of life, in working for our living, in all conditions of bodily life, wherever God engineers our circumstances—“My peace”—the imperturbable, inviolable peace of Jesus imparted to us in every detail of our lives.
Your touch still has its ancient power. Touch me, Lord, into fellowship with Yourself till my whole being glows with your peace and joy- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: Do I have the kind of peace that can withstand the assaults of slander and hatred? What is most likely to disturb my peace? Why?

06/18/2022

Twenty centuries have passed since Jesus, the Prince of Peace, came and the angels proclaimed peace on earth. But where is peace? The New Testament does not say that the angels prophesied peace: they proclaimed peace—peace to men of goodwill toward God. Jesus Christ came to manifest that God was with man, and by Him any man can be made a son of God according to the pattern of Jesus Christ. This is the Christian revelation.
Those who are in The Way have a strong family likeness to Jesus, His peace marks them in an altogether conspicuous manner. The light of the morning is on their faces, and the joy of the endless life is in their hearts. Wherever they go, men are gladdened or healed, or made conscious of a need.
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: Is my presence marked by Christ’s peace? In what ways am I participating in the peace Christ proclaimed? In what ways am I preventing it from becoming a reality?

06/17/2022

Immediately the Spirit of God comes in we begin to realize what it means—everything that is not of God has to be cleaned out. People are surprised and say, “I asked for the Holy Spirit and expected that He would bring me joy and peace, but I have had a terrible time ever since.” That is the sign He has come, He is turning out the “money-changers,” that is, the things that make the temple into a trafficking place for self-realization.
Be diplomatic. Be wise. Compromise in a shrewd way and you will get everything under your own control. That is the kind of thing the peace of the world is based on. We call it “diplomacy.” Jesus maintained His faith in God’s methods in spite of the temptations which were so wise from every standpoint except the standpoint of the Spirit of God.
- Oswald Chambers

Reflection Questions: What disruption does Jesus cause in my life? What is He determined to clean out and throw out? What confidence do I place in diplomacy?