This week I will be brief. Lee and I will be going to Kentucky for the 175th anniversary of the congregation we served in Mt. Olivet, Kentucky. Pastor Jerry will preach on Sunday. Mt. Olivet is a small town in Northern Kentucky with only a few people ... but people of God nevertheless. We will be going back to a place where love, work, family, weariness and life happened.
In Jeremiah's message from Lamentations I'll bet he thought about these things as he saw his home, Jerusalem and Judah, become exiled and destroyed before his very eyes. He looked forward and couldn't tell the people good things about what was coming. He probably wanted, like many pastors, to give his people encouragement, love and a prediction of peace. But Jeremiah's message was harsh, brutal and full of death and destruction. He said he wanted to hold in some of what he was to say, but it was a "burning in his gut." God's Word was coming out ... he had to tell.
In Kentucky, Prattville, Montgomery, and Santa Rosa Beach this is the challenge. As your pastor I have a heart for you as fellow sheep under the ultimate guidance of the Great Shepherd. He has asked me to lead you, teach you, love you, tell you His truth and give you His good Word. Sometimes that is easy, uplifting and a message of peace and love. Sometimes it is giving you a difficult, harsh, distasteful and draining message that I would rather hold inside. But like Jeremiah it is a burning in my gut. So I will do my best to tell you what God is saying through the Word for the week. I will pray that I never need to say the harsh things Jeremiah must tell the people of Judah. But remember ... it is not my word ... it is His Word. I,Pastor Jerry and Jeremiah, are messengers of a faithful and true God. Pray for Jerry and me and anyone else who is asked to preach at Good News. I will pray for eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that follow. Randy
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