Sunday, March 24, 2024
Palm Sunday
Scriptures: Isaiah 50:4-9a
Message: “The Sovereign LORD”
Preacher: Rev. Lian Chin-Siong
*** Announcements for the Week of March 17th ***
***Special Notice***
Hello brothers and sisters in Christ! May the peace of Christ be with you!
The Taiwan CDC has loosened its policies on the COVID-19 restrictions. However, it’s an enclosed space inside the church. As a result, please observe the following guidelines when inside the church premises:
1. Please make sure you have your masks properly worn when entering and inside the church. Disinfect your hands with alcohol if necessary. Maintain social distancing whenever possible.
2. If you don’t feel well, exhibit symptoms of cold, or have been in close contact with people who are contracting COVID-19, please consider to stay at home and participate the online service instead.
3. Food and drinks are conditionally allowed inside the church compound.
Thank you and let’s worship God together on Sundays!
Electronic Sunday Bulletin
EM encourages its congregation to use the electronic version of the Sunday bulletin to save paper. Please click the following link to access the eBulletin:
Or scan the following QR code.
If you have any suggestion regarding the eBulletin, please let us know. Thank you!
SERVE IN EM
Come and serve in EM! You can join the Liturgy, the Audio/Video team, the Praise team, the EM Choir, the Homeless Ministry team, or the Kids Club. Email: emcaresforyou@gmail.com for more info.
Reconciliation and Forgiveness
Nigel Lindsay / Presbyterian Church in Grenada
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. ~ Ephesians 4:31-32
Why block your relationships with God and those around you?
I have worked and lived as a social worker, mental health worker, community worker and church minister in the UK, Nigeria, Kenya, Grenada and for a short time in Fiji. All the places have slight variations, but what blocks people from achieving all God has planned for them is often unforgiven hurts from the past.
Sometime they cannot remember why they don’t speak to a certain person, but still the hostility continues. It causes more hurt to them that the person who upset them in the first place. Is that you?
Ephesians 4:31-32 says 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
But forgiveness is difficult and we may need others to help us and we certainly need God to help us. The first stage has to be prayer for the person we need to forgive and for help for ourselves.
A child I worked with in school was so angry with classmates, I visited his mother. She was so angry about boys throwing mud at her house window, which had happened a year before, had been reported, and had not continued. She was stuck and showed hostility to people outside the home and the son was acting out Mum’s modelling. When I was able to work with Mum and found out about so many unresolved issues from her past and helped her forgive and accept, both mother and child were able to form good relationships for the future. In Matthew 6:14-15, after teaching the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says: 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
When we don’t forgive our relationship with God is blocked.
In Fiji, as I remember, when we first came to a community and were welcomed, we asked for forgiveness for the things we may say or do which may offend. As hard as we try not to wrong either in what we say, do or don’t do, cultures and peoples are all different and we will make mistakes. But we have a loving and forgiving God who died so that we can be forgiven. God expects us to follow his example and forgive too.
In many of our churches each week, we have a prayer to say sorry, and it is best to do it sooner than later. The longer you leave, it the harder it is. Unfortunately, in spite of regularly saying the Lord’s Prayer and teaching forgiveness, some people in churches hold on to un-forgiveness and it blocks them and blocks the church from growth numerically and spiritually.