Our house church recently started studying the verses in the Bible talking about the "one anothers".
Verses like:
Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Romans 12:16
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Ephesians 4:2
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 5:19
speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
These are just a few.
God immediately showed us that we are simply not going to sit in a house and study these verses. He made it clear that He would give us opportunity to apply them and then watch Him work!
Literally the week we started this study, a dear friend and a member of our house church, lost her mom suddenly and unexpectedly. Of course our house church wanted to help in anyway we could. How do you help someone that just lost a loved one. This is tricky. However, I believe doing something is better than doing nothing. Our house church decided that on the next Tuesday we were going to surprise our friend and do some yard work. Everyone, including the kids, helped. It was so great to serve alongside each other. If you are wondering how does doing yard work help someone that just lost a loved one, I can't answer that. I do know that God used it in Ricki and Jeremy's life to encourage them. She told me. We went back last night to finish up and lay some mulch. I loved seeing the body of Christ work together and serve one another!
Our house church also supports a family that travels to Africa for mission work. They will be going again in July for the whole month to build a playground at an orphanage. Ricki, had a great idea to get the kids involved in raising money. She thought we should do a lemonade stand. If you are like me you are thinking, "Selling lemonade...how much money can you make selling lemonade and cookies?" These words literally came out of my mouth last night, "If we make $25 great! At least, the kids got involved and helped." Seriously. Oh, yea of little faith! God started showing up before we even started the lemonade stand. By 4:00 we had $10 donated. (We didn't officially start until 6:00.) At 6:00 we were getting things set up and this teenager walked up and asked me if we were selling lemonade. I said, "yes." But I was thinking in my head, we haven't even set up yet. How does he know we are selling it. I remembered Ricki and I put it on Facebook and he must know her, because I didn't know him. So I asked him and he said his sister knows Ricki. The kids gave him his lemonade and asked him if he wanted any cookies. He politely said, "no." Then handed me the money. It was all folded up, but I could see a $20. I said, "thank you so much!" $20 for a cup of lemonade...who pays that much? When he walked away I opened up the folded money and there wasn't just one $20, there were 5!!!! $100! I started crying and telling everyone at house church what he did! Crazy!!! God showed me immediately that he was going to blow our mind through this lemonade stand! The kids had a great time and we had many more customers. The sheriff, kids from school, 2 ladies trying to hunt down the now famous banana cookies, people donated money that didn't even come to the stand! It was truly amazing!
The final tally was...
$175!
Can you say...
God is so good!
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