Your Morning Coffee 09/18/2025

Good morning!

Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us not to forget each other. Father, it's so hard sometimes, to think of others and what their needs are. It is so easy to think of ourselves. Please help us. In the name of Jesus, guided by the Spirit, help us to show up for each other. To be fully present with one another. To hold nothing back. To set annoyance and inconvenience aside, and show up in each others' lives. Amen.

Your Morning Song: "Nothing But the Blood" by Reawaken Hymns

Your Morning Scripture: Romans 12:15

Rejoice with those who rejoice,

weep with those who weep.

...

I was talking with a loved one on the phone, just before I sat down to write this. And we were talking about finding a church. How best to find the right place to grow and know and be known. And I thought of something to mindful of, not a new thought, but a very old one.

We need to be careful not to enter into relationships of any kind, church family included, thinking first and most about what the other can offer us.

Yes. It is important to consider what others are offering, who they are and how they will impact you and help you grow. But that's not the mistake we so often make. Too often we stride into our relationships with an arm full of hoops, and tell the church "jump." Play the music I want. Preach how I want. Keep the thermostat how I want.

Or I'll go somewhere else.

How about we consider ourselves first, who am I and what do I have to offer? And then, when I see myself rightly, through God's eyes, I can see more clearly where I need to go to church. Who I need to marry. Where I need to work. How I should raise my kids.

You can't change anyone else. Only yourself.

Are we focused first on the state of our own souls before the Lord? And then taking that discerning wisdom, given freely by the Spirit, and making wise relational choices?

In the same way, when we do plug into a church, or marry someone, or have children and try to figure out how to parent, or when we do accept a job... what are we most concerned about? What we're going to get? Or what we have to offer?

As we do life together, brother, sister, we need to live self-sacrifically, not selfishly. May the eyes of my heart be searching the hearts of the church, eager to join in rejoicing, and steadfast to join in weeping. For if we give of ourselves from out of the overflow of our cup (Psalm 23:5) which God Himself fills, then we're doing it wrong.

If you're annoyed by the grief and sorrow and pain of the church, you're doing it wrong.

If you see the suffering of your brothers and sisters in Christ as an inconvenience, you're doing it very, very wrong.

But if your heart leaps with the joy of the heart of another, you're doing it right. If you're heart breaks with the brokenness of the heart of another, you're doing it very, very right.

Our God became a man, and showed up for us. Weeping. Loving. Giving. Sacrificing Himself, for us.

We have no excuse not to show up, not to embody our love, to join ourselves together in all rejoicing and all weeping. Jesus did it first. and showed us the way in which we are to love one another. Whole. Full. Completely.

Let's show up for each other. Let's celebrate together. Let's weep together.

It is not only God's command. It is the best way to live. The only way to live.

Thank you Jesus!