Dear Covenant Family:
Today was another great day at Covenant Church, with 38 folks in attendance. We thanked The Covenant Ensemble for their excellent Covenant Christmas Musical last Sunday morning, and the Mauldin family for hosting our Covenant Social at their home last Sunday evening. It was indeed a great day at Covenant last Sunday!
Please remember that we will have a Christmas Eve service at 5 PM this coming Wednesday. It will allow everyone to spend the evening with their family and friends afterwards if they wish. Also, our Covenant ministry for December will be hurricane relief, and we will support Jamaica and Cuba for the intense hurricane they experienced last month. We will donate whatever funds are contributed plus the church additional donation to Samaritans Purse, which has been heavily involved in the support of both these countries that have had major hurricane damage.
We had a number of prayer requests today. Pastor Don asked for prayers for Tina Floyd whose sister recently died, and she traveled to Alabama for her sister’s funeral. Both Ron Marks and Rose Morgan had unspoken prayer requests today. Larry Noegel asked for prayers for both Paul and Victoria MacArthur, especially for Paul, who is not doing well right now.
Becky Alexander had a praise report for both herself and her father, Bill Mercado. Becky received an insulin pump this week, which has allowed her to keep her insulin under control much better. Also, Bill’s latest MRI was very good, with no evidence remaining of any brain bleed.
Pastor Don’s sermon today was on love, with his scripture being:
1 John 4:7-11 – Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Don began by defining three types of love:
Eros love is basically a love of things. Philias love refers to a warm, affectionate, friendship-based love—a strong liking or fondness for someone, like the love between best friends, often translated as “brotherly love”. In contrast, Agape love is a selfless, unconditional, and sacrificial love, often called the highest form of love, emphasizing goodwill, benevolence, and a deliberate choice to seek the well-being of others without expecting anything in return.
Of course, Pastor Don’s sermon discussed the benefits of agape love as the only serving love to others without consideration of personal return or reward. Agape love is the only love built on sacrifice and giving to others without any expectation. If you would like to listen to this sermon, all recorded sermons can be accessed at https://gainesvillecovenantchurch.org/ and then choose Sermons on the home page, and then choose today’s message.
I wish all of you a most blessed Christmas week this coming week and a Happy New Year next week.
Ron