Good News

​Good news if you have an IRA (a.k.a. Individual Retirement Arrangement). The contribution limit has been lifted for the first time in six years. What that means for you is that you can contribute about $500 more to your retirement for the 2019 tax year.
 
The fastest route to Monmouth IL is 5 hours and 20 minutes from the church. That is if you took Interstate-35 through Kansas City to US-36 W. If you have family out in that direction you will be pleased to know that the boil order has been lifted. As a result of water main failure, the water in the area was deemed undrinkable and was required to be purified through boiling.
 
Look at the lady in the picture holding some cash rolled up, a hot beverage, and her glasses. It captures what we all may feel with the recent eruptions of violence all over the nation. The woman looks this way after a lockdown prompted by a gun call lifted at Pittsburgh Colfax K-8. Thank God no weapon found, and no one was hurt.
 
So, what do an IRA, boiling water, and a lockdown have in common? Before continuing this article, would you care to share?
 
If you said something about the spiraling depravity of our world, you have spoken correctly. If you said, “they all have nothing to do with me,” I might agree with that as well. Your life might be a copacetic rainbow pony ride at the moment and that is ok (you’re welcome, Drew).
 
The other thing these stories have in common are that limitations are being lifted. Some limitations are in place to regulate so that people do not use the favorable tax shelter of an IRA to stash cash quietly. Some limitations come with temporary variations of common practice, like boiling your water. Still some are simply just to protect.
 
In John 12:32, a limitation is lifted in direct proportion to the physical lifting up of a human body.
 
"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."
 
The “I” in this verse is none other than the great I AM. If He is lifted up from the earth, things start to happen. We know He is being lifted up from the earth on a cross, based on the next verse. We see that when He is lifted, a peculiar phenomenon takes place. We know the Earth moves round the Sun in a dynamic equilibrium. The speed of the Earth's movement creates a centrifugal force which balances the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth (thanks Google). This is the physics of material relationships. Now consider the spiritual draw that comes as a result of what Christ does in the narrative within the cosmic draw between good and evil. The truth of who God is, and what He hoped to accomplish through His Son is made manifest before the universe. The prince of this world 🌎 is cast out and an impossible third option has been created beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Eyes lifted, breath abated, words spoken, “It is Finished,” and with epic proportion, a covenant made since foundation of the world is enacted from the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit in active living Words on the page you are reading at this very moment. An invitation. One thing missing. A choice. Your choice to receive this free gift, today, today, today. By faith you and I can take hold of this beautiful invitation. It has the power to change the course of your next agenda item scheduled in the next few minutes. While it may not feel like it all the time, it is the only way I am able to make it through another minute, hour, day in the face of a scary dying world. Let us lift Him up daily.
 
Pastor Fred