Be Careful What You Say About God and Jesus!!! Taking the Lord’s name in vain, disobeying, or mocking God and Jesus can have dire consequences. I am reminded of the story in the bible about God telling Lot and his wife to flee the valley into the mountains to avoid death, and not to look back. Lot fled, but his wife looked back, and wham, God turned her into a pillar of salt. (Gen.19:25) Here are some things that have happened to people in recent times because they mocked or disobeyed God. A Brazilian composer, Cazuza, blew smoke in the air from a cigarette and said “God, that’s for you”. He died an agonizing death from AIDS. John Lennon was quoted as saying “Christianity will end, it will disappear…..We (The Beatles) are more famous than Jesus.” He died of six gunshots. Tancredo Neves, candidate for President of Brazil, said if he got 500,000 votes, not even God could remove him as President. He won, but got sick and died the day before taking office! The man who built the Titanic said “Not even God can sink this ship”. You know what happened to the Titanic. Marilyn Monroe told Billy Graham that “I don’t need your Jesus”. She died a week later. In 1979, Bon Scott, vocalist for the AC/DC music group said “I’m going all the way down the highway to hell”. He died mysteriously in 1980. Jamacian Journalist Christine Hewitt said the Bible was the worst book ever written. She burned to death in a horrible auto accident. And this one I read about takes the cake. In Campinas, Mexico a group of friends who were drunk, went to pick up a girl friend. The girl’s mother said to her as she got in the car, “My daughter, go with God and may he protect you.” The daughter responded. “Only if he rides in the trunk, because there is no room in here”. Hours later, news came that they had been involved in a fatal accident, and everyone had died, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact, and when the police opened the trunk they found a crate of eggs, and none were broken. All of this may be coincidence, but I prefer to believe that God is watching our actions and listening to us all the time. This leads me to a simple conclusion-------Be careful what you say about His Son, our precious savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Say and think happy thoughts, continue to serve Him, and live longer. Grandpa Dick

                                                                                         Deep Commitment to Service Makes Christians Healthy!!! Dr. Harold Koenig, M.D., co-director of the Center for
Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, has completed a study that confirms that there is a connection between faith and well being. “Over the past twenty years, we’ve found that people who have deep spiritual commitments are mentally healthier and need fewer health services.” The center is trying to get health professionals to acknowledge the healing aspects of strong spirituality. Based on these findings, our people must be healthier than ever. As we enter a new year, a glance back at the multitude of ministries going forth from our church is quite an impressive list. Let me try to acknowledge all ministries and their ministers in the following space. Now this might seem crazy, but I would like for each of you to stand as you read the name of a ministry you are involved in. Here we go: Sunday School, Security, Pew cleaning, Counting, CLT, Budget and Finance, Ladies Women of Grace, Squares and Prayers, Disbersement team and signers, AWANA, Nursery, Children workers, Team Kid, Youth, Say YES, ESL, Ushers, Greeters, Hospital visitation, Promise keepers, Deacons, Kitchen team, Building and grounds, Small Groups, Water’s Edge, Music team, Choir, Orchestra, Ensemble, Christmas Child, Bus team, Prayer teams, Office staff, Work Day teams, Volunteer skilled workers, Widow assistance, Audio Visual team, Sanctuary decoration team, Baptismal team, food closet, Meals to shut-ins, Gardening team, Custodial team, and neighborhood outreach, among others. I see healthy people all over the city standing to honor God with our service. Our church could not reach out to the community doing these ministries without volunteers like you. Our pastor has said it best. Over and over he tells us, “You are loved indeed”— Surely God is looking down and saying “Well done my good and faithful servants.” (Matt.3:17) And, as the study above indicates, you are a healthy bunch of servants. Grandpa Dick

                                                                                                                                     The Day Our Power Went Out (Earthly Power, That Is) One cold morning last week P. G. & E. turned off our power to do some scheduled maintenance in the neighborhood. Now normally, we can handle little situations like this, but today Bev’s brother is coming to visit from Florida, so this turned out to be a MAJOR inconvenience. It also pointed out how much we depend on electricity in our daily lives. Let me explain. Things started off bad right off the bat. I over slept because the alarm didn’t go off, and I woke up because I was cold, the electric blanket had shut down. Of course my wife, being a much earlier riser, was up, had her little electric heater on in the bathroom to take a nice warm shower, and even got her hair curled and fixed before the power went off. When I got up the house was freezing because the central heater had shut down, We usually go out to get the paper through the garage, but couldn’t get the garage door opened. How about a nice scrambled egg, toast and coffee? Forget about it, the toaster, stove, coffee maker, and microwave were dead. So if you can get this picture, here I am eating a bowl of cold cereal, reading the paper in the dark with a blanket tucked in around me. Then had to do the dishes by hand. Can you imagine!! Other things you take for granted weren’t working. The sprinklers usually come on about 9, but not today. The pool filter sat quietly and the sweep sat motionless on the bottom of the pool. Time for a shower. At least we had hot water, but I’m not used to showering in the dark. Shower was good, but the house was still ice cold. Oh well! Forget the electric razor and pull out the old trusty Gillette. My favorite shirt had wrinkles, but there will be no ironing today. Then I usually go in to check my email, but you can forget that too. The telephone worked but not the hearing booster amplifier or the answering machine. Ok, so I’ll go do my 30 on the treadmill. Nope. Bev wants some music in the kitchen. Can’t. The CD player won’t work. Watch TV? Ha Ha. But we are not going to let this get us down. We have a choice, we can actually sit and talk, or we can do our Bible study. I studied all the Sunday school lessons into the next month. Then I thought, hey, this will make a good newsletter article, so armed with all these thoughts, I sit down at my computer, and write this article by hand. Praise the Lord anyhow. Grandpa Dick