First Baptist Church Cedar Vale

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates  – Deut. 6:5-9. We live in a “Christian parent culture” that, by process of elimination, is teaching by example. In and of itself, this is what we are called to do. We are to lead our kids. We are to show them what it looks like to love Jesus. We are to show them what it looks like to love the church and to truly be committed to the body local of Christ. But there is a problem. The stats are showing something different. More than 80 percent of students are walking away from the church by the

  We've all heard the saying 'To forgive is divine...' but the thing I think we forget most of the time is that we are to imitate that divine action.  ( Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  Ephesians 5:1 ). What a way we are to imitate God?   I'm glad you asked. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:32 We should keep short accounts.  We should be willing to forgive often because we've been forgiven often.   So what happens when we don't forgive others? When we don't forgive we lose sleep.   Sleep is something that God has given us as a gift!    In fact  Jesus has given us the mandate to rest ...and when we live in a state of bitterness our rest is blocked.    When we don't forgive our health goes downhill.   According to the  MAYO CLINIC  these are some of the things that happen when we don't extend forgiveness and live a bitter lifestyle.   Bring anger and bitterness