Don't Give Up!

There's a much-loved children's book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  I've never read it, but I love the title.  Don't we all have days like that? You know the kind of day I’m talking about, where you start to think, “Okay, this is pretty bad, but at least it can’t get worse…” and then it does.  It’s the kind of day where the only prayer you know how to pray is “C’mon!  Really?”  Those are faith-testing days.  In the movie Bruce Almighty, a character says, “God is a mean kid with a magnifying glass and I’m the ant.”  That’s what it feels like sometimes.  If that’s where you are right now, there's a letter from God you need to read.  And if you’re not having one of those days, file this one away.  You’ll need it sooner or later. 
            Revelation 3:7-13 is a letter from Jesus to a church in a city called Philadelphia.  Not the one in Pennsylvania, of course, but the one in a Turkish city that is today called Alasehir.  Jesus doesn’t really talk about what these people were up against, except there was a synagogue that was giving them some trouble. Perhaps their main problems were going to start soon.  But Jesus gave them—and us—five promises to get us through days like these.  In this Sunday's sermon (October 27), I'll take a look at these five promises.  On the worst of days, there are still some things we can count on...Thank God!