From the Pastor Archives - Page 51 of 91 - First United Methodist Church of Galax

Let us ask our heavenly Father that we put no boundaries to love and compassion:

God, you revealed divine love in all its depth when you sent your only Son into the world to confront and take away the sins of the world.

Through Jesus who calls us his friends, may our love be strong as life and death.

May love have the last word in us and be given for free, like yours.

May we remain in your love and love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Amen.

(Claretian Publications, alt)

Sunday Reflection (May 9, 2021)

May 10, 2021/in From the Pastor/by Diane Palumbo

If we are friends with God, we will get a glimpse of God’s plans and intentions for the world. I do not think it is about predicting the future with a timetable cleverly drawn from different texts

in the Bible to prove the Lord is returning in the next few years. I am also convinced that it has nothing to do with returning evil for evil or punch for punch.

Rather, if we have caught a glimpse of God’s plans and intentions for the world, we will reveal God’s love to the world through the actions and words of our lives (John 15:9-17). God’s plans and intentions for the world are connected with how we treat others, and this even includes how we treat our enemies. God’s plan for the world is about healing and restoration and resurrection.

Daily Devotion April 21, 2021

April 21, 2021/in From the Pastor/by Diane Palumbo

Daily Devotion April 20, 2021

April 21, 2021/in From the Pastor/by Diane Palumbo

Prayer for the Week (April 18-April 24, 2021)

April 21, 2021/in From the Pastor/by Diane Palumbo

Let us pray that we live the risen life of Jesus: God of the living, who will believe that your Son is risen, if he is not alive among us today? Do not let the death of sin hold us. Make us brim with his life so that it may overflow upon those around us in deeds of compassionate forgiveness and generosity without measure. Nourish our life together with you and one another through the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ.

Amen.

(Claretian Publications, alt)

Sunday Reflection (April 18, 2021)

April 21, 2021/in From the Pastor/by Diane Palumbo

Each person is given dignity because he/she is created in God’s image, and through the Holy Spirit we grow in divine likeness unto the Image of Christ, and “what we will be” not “who” will be revealed (1 John 2:28-3:3). Yet, what prevents this from developing in our lives as individuals and as Christ’s Church? I found these words illuminating this: “What seems to be evil in us is purified by the mere fact of having noticed it…At the moment we notice our sin, we have not only drawn closer to our goal, but we have also drawn further away from it (René Girard).” What thwarts the image of Christ being more fully formed within us and among us?