Worship - Youth Group

Sunday's worship was led by the Youth Group and the new Youth Pastor preached.  Since they're usually in a separate worship, it was nice to see them in the main service.

One of the songs we sang was "Come Thou Fount".   The chorus was particularly applicable to me that day, for it reflected what I was feeling:
"O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above"

The start of the second verse of the hymn caught my attention:  "Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I come"; for I was wondering what that meant.   From looking it up, it comes from 1 Samuel 7:12 "Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah.  He named it Ebenezer (which means “the stone of help”), for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!"

 The sermon was a reminder that while we may fail, we should deal with our problems and turn back to God, like David did.  In facing our challenges, we are to boast in the Lord, not in our own power.  And, we have faith rooted in the knowledge that God will carry us through, because He has done so in the past.  We have victory in the way God created us and we just need to keep Him in the right perspective.  It's reassuring that God uses unlikely people in impossible situations, so that He would be glorified.

I recommit myself to be Holy as He is Holy; and I was encouraged by the reminder from my life verse to lay aside the encumbrance which so easily entangles,run with endurance, and fix my eyes on Jesus.