1.1-We must decrease. God must increase.

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1.1-


God wants to provide for His children all of what we need and much of what we want.
We need a Savior and He sent Jesus, His Son, to be born in Bethlehem.
We need Immanuel, God with us.
We need grace, mercy and peace.
Grace is getting what we don’t deserve.
Mercy is not getting what we do deserve.
Peace is what comes into our hearts as we have received into our hearts what flows out of God’s heart into us, His children.

He had planned from the foundation of the world that His Son would die and be resurrected through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is good news, God sends us grace, mercy and peace through His Holy Spirit to spread this good news all over the world.  Beginning at Jerusalem, but extending all over the world to all people and all nations.

This good news of Jesus Christ as our Savior came to America with the arrival of the Pilgrims.  Then down to Texas and one of the groups that met first there in 1879 continues today, The Oak Ridge Church of Christ.  

 I was taken there when I was one month old, 72 years ago.  The group still meets today for the purpose of making and growing disciples of Jesus Christ.  Many leaders and teachers have worked there over the years to teach about Jesus by service and by words.  They all had the vision that they must decrease and Jesus must increase.  This work of spreading this good news has been going on around the world for about 2018 years and will continue until Jesus returns.

 Acts 1.
4 [d]Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for [e]what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized [f]with the Holy Spirit [g]not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”


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