Welcome to our 13th Friday Connection
We thought we’d begin with an update on the stamps we collect for the Bone Cancer Research Trust – we sent them off last week, and had a note back from the volunteer who sorts them – called Terri . “Thank you so much! Your box made me so happy – we aren’t getting much post at the present for the stamp appeal.” She also says they raised £9659 last year with the stamps – so please keep collecting!
Our reading from Matthew this week is the well-known story of the two house builders – one who built on sand and his house collapsed, the other who built on rock and the house withstood storms and floods.
It’s all about the foundations – one way to understand this parable is to say that the rock is Jesus, and the sand is anything other than Jesus.
However, it actually says: “Anyone who hears these words of mine and OBEYS them is like a wise man who built his house on rock.” So the rock is obedience, the sand is disobedience, going our own way, doing our own thing.
One ancient Christian writer said that the greatest need of any follower of Jesus is not to know more, but to obey what she or he already knows. On that basis it is reading God’s word and then living by it, that is the foundation for our life.
With that foundation our lives can withstand anything that life throws at us: be it illness, loneliness, even lockdown and not being at church. We live our lives as followers of Jesus, not in a church building but in the world and placed where God has placed us.
Are we “doing” the words of Jesus, or only reading them, hearing them, and thinking how fine they are?
We pray:
Almighty God, you have built your church on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. Join us together in the unity of the spirit by their teaching, that we may become a living temple, acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The readings for Sunday are: Deuteronomy 11: 18-28, Romans 1:16 and 17, Matthew 7:24-29
With our love and prayers
Irene and Terry