InTouch June 2023

Dear friends,
 
We hear a lot these days of self-esteem and self-confidence; people are very conscious of their appearance. This is not always helped by the trend of fashion and the pressure of keeping up appearances. Young people especially feel that pressure, where for many, the standards are just too high to reach.
There’s pressure to go on diets, buy expensive face cream, have surgery, colour your hair: the list goes on. And whilst it’s important to look after ourselves, how sad and damaging it is, that we are pressured to think so negatively about our own human body.
 
Psalm 139: “For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
 
In Ephesians 5.27, Paul likens the Church of Christ to a bride without spot or wrinkle. Does that mean that the body of Christ too has an impossible standard of perfection? If that were so, the body would have been written off as a lost cause long ago. What this means is that a beautifying process, which takes a lifetime to complete, is to transform us into the likeness of Jesus Christ, and being covered by the washing of the word.
 
As we hear and obey the Word of God, we are being cleansed and sanctified so that in the future we shall be glorified, when we shall see Him as He is. Throughout our lives, as we hear the Word of God, listen, and apply the Word to our lives, we are being refined and sanctified for the glory of that day.
 
May we be encouraged therefore to apply the Word of God to our hearts every day.
 
Yours,
 
Pastor.