WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?

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MAKING MASKS
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PURCHASING AND DELIVERING FOOD AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS

Cape Neddick Baptist Church
34 River Road
Cape Neddick, ME 03902
207.363.3566
​CapeNeddickBaptist@twc.com
www.Facebook.com/CNBCM/
Rev. Donna F. G. Hailson, Pastor
cnbcpastor@gmail.com
207.475.5017 (Cell)
Sunday Worship Service 10:15 a.m.

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PRAYING
"God's work, done God's way, will never lack God's supplies"—Hudson Taylor
Cape Neddick Baptist is a Christ-centered, Bible-honoring church with a big heart and a big mission. 
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WE WILL RESUME IN-PERSON WORSHIP
ON THE LAWN OF THE CAPE NEDDICK BAPTIST CHURCH ON SUNDAY, JULY 12, AT 10:15 AM!!!!
​SEATING WILL BE ARRANGED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH RECOMMENDED SOCIAL DISTANCING.
PLEASE WEAR A MASK.

The Lure of the Easy Way

   The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."—Michelangelo
   On Facebook’s York Community Dialogue page yesterday was an exchange that caught my eye. It wasn’t an unusual conversation; some version of it is one we all seem to be having. But it provides, in this entry, a launching point from which to consider the lure of the easy way; the differences between rights and responsibilities; and the call to self-denial/consideration of the other.
   The exchange centered on the refusal of some folks to wear masks in public places. The conversation then moved on to the unwelcome—“go F yourself and mind your own business"—responses one can hear when politely asking another person to don a mask. Ninety comments followed the original post. 
    Right ahead of the Facebook exchange about masks was another post about York's beaches and the abundance of trash that remained on the sand and in the water at the close of a day with hordes of visitors.
    So, what is this defiance about masks and the leaving of one’s trash on the beach all about? Have some folks not heard that masks can save lives? Is this about selfishness? Hyper-individualism? Live free or die? No one’s going to tell me what to do? Were some folks just never taught to take responsibility for their own actions? Are we seeing an entitlement mentality here? Is this laziness?
   Well, in this entry, I want to pull all of this together with a focus on three answers that have come to the fore for me that are all part and parcel of one answer.
   First, there is the danger that arises when rights are set in opposition to responsibilities. Rights are freedoms we have that are protected by laws. Responsibilities are duties, things that we should do as good citizens or members of a community or family.
   Second is the lure of the easy way.
   Third is the absence of consideration for others, the inability or unwillingness to self-deny (to sacrifice one’s own desires for the sake of another). Click on the image above to be taken to a transcript and audio of "The Lure of the Easy Way," based on Matthew 16:21-28.

Unforgiveness: Taming the Loose Cannon Below Decks

   Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
   French author Victor Hugo, best known for Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was also the author of the novel, 93, (Quatrevingt-Treize). The book is centered on the year 1793, Year Two of the French Republic, which saw the execution of Louis XVI.
   In a chapter entitled, “Tormentum Belli,” which Hugo translates in the text as “war machine,” is the story of the corvette Claymore. The author tells us that the three-masted, square-rigged warship was in rough seas when suddenly an awful noise arose from below decks. Hugo tells us: “a frightful thing had happened.”
   The vessel was equipped with thirty carronades, short smoothbore cast iron cannons able to fire large shot at short range. These had been fastened below deck by triple chains and the hatches above had been shut. Now, one of these cannons had broken loose and had become something akin to what Hugo calls an “indescribable supernatural beast,” rolling, pitching, rushing, and crashing into the ship’s sides. “Nothing more terrible can happen to a vessel in open sea and under full sail,” Hugo reports, for a loose cannon is “a battering-ram . . . [that] has the bounds of a panther, the weight of an elephant, the agility of a mouse, the obstinacy of an axe, the unexpectedness of the surge, the rapidity of lightning, the deafness of the tomb. It weighs ten thousand pounds and, it rebounds like a child’s ball.”
   “How to control this enormous brute of bronze?” Hugo asks. “How to fetter this monstrous mechanism for wrecking a ship? . . . The horrible cannon flings itself about, advances, recoils, strikes to the right, strikes to the left. . . crushes men like flies.”
   The whole ship was now in awful tumult as the cannon, which is said to have appeared to the crew as owning “a soul filled with rage and hatred,” tears apart the insides of the ship. Hugo tells us that often it is true that more dangerous to a ship is a loose cannon inside than a storm outside. And what is true of ships is also true of human beings. A loose cannon inside is more dangerous than a storm outside.
   God's Word invites us to go "below decks" for a look at the turmoil that can result when the cannon that is unforgiveness gets loose. And it is in the Word that we will find the help needed for taming this "beast," this "battering ram" that—left uncontrolled—can wreak devastating havoc.
​   Click on the button above for the audio only or click on the image of Victor Hugo to be taken to a transcript and audio of "Unforgiveness: Taming the Loose Cannon Below Decks Redux and scroll down.

He Knows No Fear; Fear Nothing for He is With You

   A compilation of some of the devotional messages, from sundry sources, that have been ministering to me over these days of physical distancing. Click on the button above for the pastor's audio recording of "He Knows No Fear; Fear Nothing While He Is With You."
Is He Worthy?
Do you feel the world is broken? (We do)
Do you feel the shadows deepen? (We do)
But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through? (We do)
Do you wish that you could see it all made new? (We do)
Click on the image above for the video "Is He Worthy?"

Are You Listening?

   As we look out on a society deeply troubled by civil unrest, as we consider the appearance of and the after-effects of a global pandemic, as we ponder what it will mean as we emerge from our imposed cells of isolation, many are asking: “what does it all mean? Why is all of this happening? Are there cultural elites manipulating us for their own ends? How can a loving and all powerful God allow the catastrophic to occur? Is God speaking to us through all this turmoil?”
   Are you seeking the wisdom of God in these days? Are you reaching out to Him in prayer? The Lord speaks to us in manifold ways through the written Word, through His Holy Spirit, through the natural world, and often through the unbidden and unexpected. 
He calls us to listen and to use words that will edify, words that will build and challenge and comfort and minister to those around us. But it's not always easy to locate those words when the people in our lives shun us, refuse to listen to us, misunderstand us, dismiss us, and treat us with disrespect. Walls are built—walls of anger and frustration and fear—walls that are hard to penetrate. In the midst of all the confusion, we may even build walls between ourselves and God. We can't hear or we refuse to listen.
   We all say we want signs. But are we listening? Are we listening for what God is saying at the small crossroads as well as at the big junctures? Are we listening to the spoken and the unspoken words of those we encounter every day? Are we listening to the heart cries of the child, the stranger, the friend, even the one who seems bent on our destruction?
   Click on the image above to be taken to a transcript and audio of "Are You Listening?" based on James 1:16-27. You'll need to scroll down to the message.

You'll Get Through This

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   You fear you won't make it through. We all do. We fear that the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave. In the pits, surrounded by steep walls and aching reminders, we wonder: Will this gray sky ever brighten? This load ever lighten?
   In this six-session small group Bible study, pastor and New York Times best-selling author, Max Lucado offers refreshing assurance. Max reminds participants God doesn't promise that getting through trials will be quick or painless. It wasn't for Joseph—tossed in a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, wrongfully imprisoned, forgotten and dismissed. But his Old Testament story is in the Bible for this reason: to teach us to trust God to trump evil. Max explores the story of Joseph and the truth of Genesis 50:20. What Satan intends for evil, God redeems for good. Click on the book to be linked to the study.
​PERSEVERE
From talented composer and musician
​Valerie Crescenz—comes a song—PERSEVERE--
to bless us in this time of unsettledness.
Click on the box below for the link.
“Then go inside and shut the door”—2 Kings 4:4
   They were to be alone with God, for they were not dealing with the laws of nature, nor human government, nor the church, nor the priesthood, nor even with the great prophet of God, but they must needs be isolated from all creatures, from all leaning circumstances, from all props of human reason, and swung off, as it were, into the vast blue inter-stellar space, hanging on God alone, in touch with the fountain of miracles.       Here is a part in the program of God's dealings, a secret chamber of isolation in prayer and faith which every soul must enter that is very fruitful. There are times and places where God will form a mysterious wall around us, and cut away all props, and all the ordinary ways of doing things, and shut us up to something Divine, which is utterly new and unexpected, something that old circumstances do not fit into, where we do not know just what will happen, where God is cutting the cloth of our lives on a new pattern, where He makes us look to Himself.--Adapted from Streams in the Desert

Press On

   When you go, your way shall be opened up before you, step by step (Proverbs 4:12).
   The Lord never builds a bridge of faith except under the feet of the faith-filled traveler. If He builds the bridge a rod ahead, it would not be a bridge of faith. That which is of sight is not of faith.
   There is a self-opening gate which is sometimes used in country roads. It stands fast and firm across the road as a traveler approaches it. If he stops before he gets to it, it will not open. But if he will drive right at it, his wagon wheels press the springs below the roadway, and the gate swings back to let him through. He must push right on at the closed gate, or it will continue to be closed.
   This illustrates the way to pass every barrier on the road of duty. Whether it is a river, a gate, or a mountain, all the child of Jesus has to do is to go for it. If it is a river, it will dry up when you put your feet in its waters. If it is a gate, it will fly open when you are near enough to it, and are still pushing on. If it is a mountain, it will be lifted up and cast into a sea when you come squarely up, without flinching, to where you thought it was.
   Is there a great barrier across your path of duty just now? Just go for it, in the name of the Lord, and it won't be there.—Henry Clay Trumbull