Luke 4:1-13

Thoughts:         A minister’s wife bought a very expensive dress.  When her husband saw the price, he was horrified.
 
“You know we can’t afford that dress!” he raved.  “Why on earth did you buy it?”
 
“Well,” she explained.  “I tried it on, and I looked so good in it, I just couldn’t resist.’
 
But her husband raged on.  “You should have said, ‘Get thee behind me Satan’.”
 
“Oh, I did,” she assured him.  ‘But he said, ‘It looks great from back here, too’.”
 
The minister’s wife yielded to temptation.  Most of us do, when we want something very much.  The old hymn instructs us:
 
                             “Yield not to temptation.                       Make friends of God’s children.
                             Speak oft with thy lord.                          Help those who are weak,
                             Abide in Him always                                Forgetting in nothing
                             And feed on His word.                             His blessing to seek.”
 
Note the active verbs:  speak, abide, feed, make, help.  The concluding admonition may be negative, but it is vital:  never forget God’s blessings.
 
Discussion:      Remember a special blessing.  Was it unexpected?  Disguised?
 

Activity:            Try to be a blessing in the life of a person who needs you.

Remember in prayer this week the family of Jim Kuszmaul and Barbara Strozynski on the death of their granddaughter and niece, Sarah Defenderfer, recently.  Remember also Betty Dietz, Vivian Hansard, and Fred Laws.
 
Please join us tomorrow night at 7:30pm for our Ash Wednesday service.  We will receive ashes and Communion.
 
Sunday is Blanket Sunday.  $5 buys a blanket to be used in all sorts of emergencies world-wide.  Pin your bills on the blanket that will be in the gathering area.