Did you start giving out invites and get over the fear?
For the last year we talked about loving our neighbor. When we do that we don’t just loveour neighbor, no we also change our community. When we change the lives of the people we love we change our lives. We make our communities better. We prepare the ground for people to start knowing Jesus and to fall in love with him. The door will be opened for others to really see the goodness of God and for us it will create a better life too. When we have a better community it translates into a better place for all of us. When we think about others first, we will change inside and selfishness and looking out for our own best intrests diminishes. We are changing to a person that becomes more like Jesus and loves more like him.
So loving our neighbor is good from all aspects. It brings more thankfulness in our lives when we see how others change and become more thankful. In a few days we celebrate thanksgiving a big holiday all about being thankful and community. When we love our neighbor and community it will not just be a day of thankfulness for us, no it will be for all the people we loved well and all the people they loved well and so on. Why, because they might have never had community and now through you loving them they found it and that is really something to be thankful for. Out of that they might bring community to there neighbors because they saw what it did to them and how it changed them. So lets keep loving our neighbor and keep making a difference in there lives. Let us be thankful this year for what God was doing in our and there life.
Hey our friend
We hope your week was good. We had a normal week here in San Francisco. We started preparations for Thanksgiving. This year we will host together with a neighbor which is exciting! Pray for a good time of connections and relationship. Jen and I are doing well too. We watched a sweet little dog of friends of ours which brought a lot of joy!
Think about 3 things every day this week which you are thankful for!
Have a blessed week and be a blessing!
Markus and Jen
Recently we celebrated the 500th anniversary of reformation day. The day Luther nailed 95 theses at the door of the church in Wittenberg. He did it so people would have the opportunity to know the full truth and that the church could be reformed. Luther called for repentance and change. At the time people were given wrong information about salvation (the church leaders at that time were more about power, politics and money then about Jesus)and through that they always lived in fear. With Luther bringing the truth and also translating the bible he enabled people to read for themselves and understand what Jesus did for them. He also changed the church.
One of the great things Jesus did with his disciples was showing them that he really wanted them. Remember Peter and all his missteps? Jesus told him and showed him many times that he wanted him and that he was important. It was harder to believe for Peter but Jesus made it clear many times.
Recently I watched this episode of little house on the prairie which was about a lady that moved into town and she was a bit strange. Many people right away stayed away from her. But 2 of the main character decided to befriend her. Through that friendship others started to accept her as well and that opened up the door for her to help people with giftings she had. But before she could help anyone she had to be accepted and be a friend. And also people first had to meet her before the opinions could change about her.
One thing we learned over the years is that we have to start early with invitations for holidays. Its 2 weeks before thanksgiving and Jen starts to hand out invitations to many of our neighborhood friends to our thanksgiving meal. After all the inviting we end up with a very full table and apartment. Everyone who came had a wonderful time together and many of them shared how it felt like family. Through early planning most people could come since they did not have plans yet.