17 06 Emmanuel Life

JULY 2017
EDITION
PEOPLE
WHO DO
SAY I AM?
Story on page 4
In this issue:
This is the Race I’m In p.2
Charlie Brown’s Rules for a Better Life p. 3
You’ll Find Jesus There p. 6
A Restless Heart p. 9
EMMANUEL
Baptist Church
240 Main St., Bloomfield, ON
emmanuellife.com

2
this is the race i’ m in
A few years ago, 42 year old
Georgene Johnson was slated to
run in a 10-kilometre race. Instead,
she mistakenly joined about 4,000
runners taking part in the Revco-
Cleveland Marathon. Rather than
quit, she hung on to finish the 26
mile race. “As stupid as I felt out
there running, I’m proud of myself,”
Johnson said in a telephone
interview.
“I guess I was in better shape than
I thought. I feel fine, although my
knees are real sore this morning.”
“The opposite of joy is not
sorrow, it is unbelief”
- Leslie Wetherhead
The 10K race, was to start at 8:45
a.m., the marathon 15 minutes
earlier, and both races used the
same starting line.
Four miles down the road, as the
route left downtown and moved into
residential areas, she said she “got
that sick feeling that possibly I was in
the wrong race.”
Another runner confirmed her
suspicions. Johnson finished the
marathon in 4 hours 4 minutes,
good enough for 83rd place in the
women’s division. But it’s what she
said at the end of the race about why
she kept going that is significant.
Johnson told a reporter that she said
to herself, “This isn’t the race I trained
for. This isn’t the race I entered. But,
for better or worse, this is the race
I’m in.”
In life, we can often find ourselves
running a race that we hadn’t planned
to run. Whether it be as a single
mom, or becoming divorced, or out
of work, dealing with depression,
finding out you’ve got cancer. There
are a myriad of situations that
nobody plans for, but sometimes it
we find out, ‘that’s the race I’m in.”
Jesus said, “In this world you will
have trouble, but take heart for I
have overcome the world. (John
16:33). When we know Jesus as our
Saviour, He enables us live as an
overcomer. The Bible says, “let
us run with perseverance the race
marked out for us, fixing our eyes
on Jesus, the author and finisher of

charlie brown’ s rules
for a better life
Peppermint Patty once asked
Charlie Brown what would be some
good rules for living. He replied by
saying:
“Keep the ball low, don’t leave your
crayons in the sun, use dental floss
every day, don’t spill the shoe polish,
always knock before entering,
don’t let the ants get in the sugar,
never volunteer to be a program
chairman, always get your first
serve in, and feed your dog whenever
he’s hungry.”
Peppermint Patty asled, “Will those
rules give me a better life, Chuck?:
“A better life and a fat dog,” Charlie
Brown replied.
Jesus said, “I have come that they
may have life and have it to the full”
(John 10:10). Knowing Jesus not
only gives us eternal life in heaven,
He also enables us to live life on this
earth to the full.
This happens because when we
receive Jesus as our Saviour, we
are forgiven of all our sin and the
Spirit of God comes to live within
us. It is His Spirit residing in us that
changes us from the inside out.
The apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone
is in Christ, they are a new creation:
The old has gone, the new has
come!” (2 For 5:17)
Just like Peppermint Patty, we are
often looking for a way to improve
our life, but the greatest way to improve
is by turning to our creator
who made us and give our life to
Him. The Bible says, “To all who
receive Him, to those who believe
in His name, He gave the right to be
called children of God” (John 1:12)
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EMMANUEL Picton
SUNDAYS. 10AM CHURCH at the Regent Theatre (224 Main St., Picton)

4
who do people say i am?
A Washington Post journalist by the name of Gene Weingarten won the
Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for an article he wrote entitled “Pearls Before Breakfast.”
It was about a busker playing a violin at the top of the escalator outside the
L’Enfant Station Plaza in Washington, D.C. Hidden from view was a video
camera set up to record the event, and the busker played some of the most
inspiring classical music ever written. And the commuters just walked on by,
and by and large, ignored him.
The violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most famous violinists in the world.
And the violin he was playing was a Stradivarius, which was made in 1713
by Antonio Stradivari, and had been purchased for a
reported 3.5 million dollars.
Now Joshua Bell normally plays in the
great concert halls of Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Vienna, Prague,
London, Paris, New York, and
in November will be in Toronto
(Tickets range from $160-260
each). People pay a lot of
money to go to hear him
play. He earns up to a
thousand dollars a minute
for his actual playing.
On this particular
morning he walked
into the exit of the train
Station, positioned
himself against a
wall next to a trash
basket. He was wearing
jeans, a long-sleeved
t-shirt, and a baseball
cap. He removed his violin
from its case and placed
the case open on the ground
in front of him, threw in some
change to encourage donations,
and began to play. Every time a
train pulled into the station, people
...continued on page 5.

5
...from page 4 Who do People Say I Am?
streamed up out of the subway.
Joshua Bell played for 47 minutes;
over a thousand people walked
past him. Hardly anyone stopped to
listen. 27 people put money into his
violin case - it came to $31.21. One
person recognized him.
In speaking about Jesus, the Bible
says, “He came into the very world
he created, but the world didn’t
recognize him” (John 1:10). People
don’t recognised Jesus today for who
He is. They will often acknowledge
that He was a great moral teacher,
but don’t recognized Him as the Son
of God. Jesus said, “I Am the way
and the truth and the life, no one
comes to the Father except through
me” (John 14:6). In other words,
Jesus is the only way to heaven.
There is no other way, except
through Jesus. And yet people just
pass him by.
Jesus was doing many miracles
amongst the people, and so one day
Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do
people say I am?” The disciples told
Jesus that the people thought that
maybe he was John the Baptist or
Elijah or Jeremiah come back to life
- there were many suggestions, but
the people didn’t recognize Him as
the Son of God, the one who had
come to save them from their sins.
Then Jesus asked them a very
important question, “But what about
you?” he asked. “Who do you say I
am?” The disciple Peter answered,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” (Matthew 16:13-16).
How you answer that question will
determine your eternal destiny.

6
you’ ll find jesus there
Sadly, we live in a world that is filled
with suffering, evil and pain, and it’s
often because of these things that
many choose to reject God. They
argue, “how can their be a loving
God, when the world is the way it is.”
A third-century man by the name
of Cyprian, as he was anticipating
death, wrote these last words to
a friend called Donatus: “It’s a bad
world, Donatus, an incredibly bad
world. But I have discovered in the
midst of it a quiet and holy people
who have learned a great secret.
They have found a joy which is a
thousand times better than any
pleasure of our sinful life. They
are despised and persecuted, but
they care not. They are masters of
their souls. They have overcome
the world. These people are the
Christians, and I am one of them.”
That man discovered something.
He discovered that despite the evil,
suffering and pain in the world, we
can live as overcomers.
Jesus said, “In this world you will
have trouble, but take heart for I
have overcome the world.” (John
16:33)
If we are going to live as an
overcomer, we need to have Jesus
in our lives. When we ask Jesus to
forgive us and to be our personal
Saviour, He gives us the gift of the
Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit living
within us that enables us to live as
an overcomer.
“Tomorrow morning I’ll open up your
heart” the surgeon said to the little 8
year-old-boy.
...continued on page 8.

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8
...from page 6 You’ll Find Jesus There
“You’ll find Jesus there,” the boy said.
The surgeon continued, “I’ll open
your heart and check the damage to
your heart.”
“You’ll find Jesus there,” the boy said.
“When I see the damage, I will sew
you back up and then think about
what to do next,” said the surgeon.
The little boy said, “You will find Jesus
in my heart because my Sunday
school teacher told me so. She said
it says so in the Bible. Besides that,
our Sunday school songs say He
lives there.”
The surgery took place the next day
After the surgery the surgeon began
to make some notes of what he found.
In his mind there was no hope and no
cure. The little boy would die within
a matter of months. The thought
began to get to the doctor and all of
a sudden the doctor shouted at God,
“Why did you do this to this boy? Why
can’t he live a normal life?”
God spoke to the surgeon’s heart
and said, “The boy is a part of my
flock and will always be a part of my
flock. When he is with me, there will
be no more suffering and pain. He will
have comfort and peace. One day his
parents, as well as you, will join him
and my flock will continue to grow.”
The next day the surgeon went to
the boy’s room and sat down with the
parents beside the bed. After a few
moments, the boy opened his eyes
and asked very quietly, “What did you
find in my heart?”
With tears flowing down his cheeks,
the surgeon said, “I found Jesus
there.”
Now, you can discount that little story
as a children’s Sunday School story,
but to do so would be to discount the
reality that in this world of suffering,
evil and pain, God has made available
to us something that will allow us to
live as overcomers.
We receive this gift when we come
to know Jesus Christ as our personal
Saviour. I encourage you to cry out
to Jesus today, and ask Him to come
and live in your heart.
WE’RE SAVING
A SEAT FOR
YOU
SUNDAYS 9AM & 11AM
EMMANUEL
Baptist Church
240 Main Street, Bloomfield
emmanuellife.com

a restless heart
As I was coming to the end of grammar
school in England, many years ago
now, my Mum saw an advert in the
paper that read, “Radio Officers, see
the world,” and then a phone number
for a college. So I went to college
and then joined the merchant navy
as a radio officer. I had a great time. I
got to see the world and was paid well
to do so. During those seven years I
travelled around the world completely
three times, visiting every continent.
For a young man in his early twenties
it was a great life.
However, I can remember on a few
different occasions, sitting at the
bow of the ship (that’s the front, just
in case you didn’t know) in the quiet,
with just the sound of the waves,
watching the flying fish, or seeing
porpoises swim alongside the ship
and thinking to myself, of all things,
about the meaning of life.
I remember thinking - what is all this
about? I join a ship for five months or
so, go home for six to eight weeks
and then join another ship and so
the cycle continues. I can remember
thinking, “there has to be more
to life than this.” Don’t get me
wrong, I wasn’t complaining
- my life was great, in fact,
as far as I was concerned
I couldn’t imagine it being
any better.
Saint Augustine, a
fourth century Christian
leader who greatly
influenced Christian
9
thinking and theology, wrote, “You
have created us for yourself, and our
hearts are restless till we rest in you.”
I didn’t realise it at the time, but that
was me. I had a restless heart. Many
of us try to fill that restlessness in lots
of different ways. We get involved in
a variety of activities, pour ourselves
into our work, fill our lives with our
children, holidays, hobbies and so on.
There is nothing wrong with any of
those things, but they can’t take the
place of what only God can give us.
Until our heart rests in the presence
of God, we can never know the peace
of God that he has made available to
all of us.
Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you;
My peace I give to you” John 14:27.
...continued on page 10.

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...from page 9 A Restless Heart
Do you know the peace of God in
your life, or is your heart ‘restless,’
like mine was. I didn’t find the peace
of God until a number of years later,
when I attended a Church where I
was challenged to ask Jesus to
come into my life to be my personal
Saviour. As a Christian, I have
come to know the purpose for my
life and found the contentment that
comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
You can too.
I encourage you to go to Church
and come to know the meaning
and purpose of life.
There is so much good
in the worst of us, and so
much bad in the best of
us, that it ill behooves any
of us to find fault with the
rest of us.”
- James Truslow Adams
Never think that God’s delays
are God’s denials. Hold on;
hold fast; hold out. Patience
is genius.”
- Comete de Buffon
buzz
S!
Permission to photocopy this resource from Group’s Maker Fun Factory VBS granted for local church use. Copyright © 2017 Group Publishing, Inc., Loveland, CO. group.com/vbs
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Ages 4-11 | FREE EVENT!
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Maker Fun Factory is for kids from __4 ___ to
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Maker Fun Factory is for kids from __4 ___ to
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steps to peace with god
God’s Purpose: Peace and Life
God is the Master Artist. He created the universe and everything in it,
and made us so we could have fellowship with Him. God loves us and
wants us to experience His peace and life - abundant life in this world
and eternity with God. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one
and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have
eternal life.” - John 3:16
The Problem: Separation from God
God created us in His own image to have
everlasting life. When we choose to disobey God,
going our own way and not His, this is sin, and
separates us from God. “For all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God.” - Romans 3:23
God’s Bridge to Himself: The Cross of Jesus
Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from
the grave. He paid the penalty for our sin and
bridged the gap between God and people. “Jesus
answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the father except through me.”
- John 14:6
Our Response: Receiving Jesus Christ as Saviour We must
trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and invite Him into our life. When
we do, He comes into us through His Holy Spirit. “Here I am! I stand at
the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in and fellowship with him, and he with me.” - Rev. 3:20
How You Can Know Jesus Today
• Admit your need for Him.
• Be willing to turn from your sins.
• Believe that Jesus died for you on the cross and rose from the grave.
• Invite Jesus to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit.
How to Pray:
Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I
believe that You died for my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I now invite
You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as Lord
and Saviour. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, give me a call - I would like to give you some
materials to help you come to know Jesus better.
Peter Spragg. 613 476 2227. peter@emmanuellife.com
11

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but our God is much bigger.
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