Genesis - Fall of Man

Genesis 3: 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  (NIV).

This verse implies that Adam was with Eve when she was tempted and did not stop her.  It was Adam who was given the command : Genesis 2: 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (NIV).  It was his responsibility to tell the Woman and to protect her.

Genesis - Creation

While researching for the Genesis Bible Study, I found out some interesting facts.

God used in the creation story is Elohim (a plural word).  A singular verb is used for created.  Elohim indicating that there not only is a trinity of beings, but they are one in Spirit.  Hebrew word here for ‘create’ (bara) means to make something from nothing. Only God makes something from nothing.

The Trinity from the beginning in Genesis.

Genesis Bible Study

We are starting a new Bible Study on Genesis, Mondays at 10 AM.  This book begins with "In the beginning God created."  This is the basis for the rest of the Bible.

Major portions are Creation, Fall of Man, Noah and Flood, stories of Abram, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year again. The church year begins with Advent & the anticipation and preparing for the Savior's birth.

This year the Gospel reading are mainly from Luke.

Happy New Year!

Unity

This past week, we had a Bilingual service with our sister congregation Sagrado Corazon. It was great to have all of us together. Sagrado has a much younger group of people including numerous children; whereas, our population is much older.

It was amazing hearing both languages singing the same song. The Sagrado choir sang part of there anthem in English & TULC's choir sang the refrain from their song in Spanish.

The sermon was started by Pastor Grudt & translated by Pastor Lebron as he went along.

We filled the church for the first time in a while.

It was a great show of unity between the two congregations.

Welcome Pastor Grudt Again!

TULC's congregation has extended a call to Pastor Rich Grudt to become our permanent pastor.

Pastor Grudt has accepted.

We are blessed as a congregation to be able to get such a wonderful person to lead us!

Jesus's Parents

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is Luke 1:26-38 where the Angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her she will "conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus"(Luke 1:31 NASB) . She is taken aback but eventually says : "may it be done to me according to your word"(Luke 1:38 NASB).

A young girl visited by an Angel & she submits to God's will.

Joseph also had to bear the possible shame of marrying a non-virgin & raise a child not his own. He did it, think of the enormity of the responsibility of raising the Messiah, "Son of the Most High; and the Lord God" (Luke 1:32 NASB).

He was a blue collar worker, a simple carpenter. He had no special abilities or training yet he did it!

So can we do what God wants us to do, he will not give us more than we can handle. "To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability"(Matt 25:15 NASB)