Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Send us on update on how you are doing and how we can pray for you.

We had lots of great things going on here in San Francisco. We had a great meeting with our small group and a wonderful time with our encouragment group. We had a new person come which was awesome. Please pray with us for more people to come to connect with each other. We also had a neighborhood exploration tour with 20 Pastors from the city in which a Pastor shared with us about how he reaches the people in his community. It was an encouraging networking time. Thanks for all your prayers and financial support. You are a blessing in our life!!

You make, all things, work together for my good

During my week I try to have times of worship. Sometimes I just put worship songs on and just worship God. The other day God just started to speak to me through the lyrics of the Jesus Culture song your love never fails. I felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work that was ahead of me and all things that were going on with the ministry (mainly good things). So when the song started playing I let the lines sink in and started to feel encouraged.

It spoke about different stories in the bible to me like the prodigal son (Luke 15.11-32) in this part:

Nothing can separate, Even if I ran away,
Your love never fails.
I know I still make mistakes.
But You have new mercies for me every day.
Your love never fails.

God always has his arms open to run back into. Even if we fail at times Gods love doesn’t change or fail. He still loves us the same. He is still the same loving father.

Then it goes to the Chorus:

You stay the same through the ages. Your love never changes.
There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning.
And when the oceans rage, I don’t have to be afraid.
Because I know that You love me

It is amazing how it reminds us of the consistency of God and how it will never change. That is a great reminder for every person that struggles with transition. God will be the same. And then the next part about how pain can happen or how we can be in hard seasons, but we still have to remember that there is an end to that as well and that we can have joy again. Gods love never changes. It reminded me of the story where Jesus slept in the boat in the middle of a huge storm (Matthew 8.23-27). But it was OK for Him since He knew the whole time that His father had everything in His hands.

This was just the first part of the song but can you see how rich it is and how it can encourage you in such a deep way. When you look at the Psalms in the bible you see the same thing. Songs written to worship God, connect with Him and to challenge or encourage the reader or singer of them. So if you go through a hard time or when life is great get some encouragement by worshiping God through worship songs or Hyms or by reading out the Psalms. Next time you are in church focus on the lyrics and see how God wants to encourage you.

We wish you a blessed week with the final line of the Song.

You make, all things, work together for my good.

Markus and Jen