https://www.portstewartpresbyterian.org/sermons/covenant-god-pursues/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=213Ebx-YuhQ&t=5s
Harvest is the opportunity for us to stop and realise just how good God is to us and to give thanks. That God is with us, that we have indeed tasted that God is good, but maybe we just need to remember how good that taste is.
As we celebrate harvest today, certainly we acknowledge the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God because God is good and faithful. We also acknowledge the reality of the world in which we live. It is hard, it is painful, it is worrying. Part of what it is to celebrate the goodness of God is to throw ourselves on that goodness by confessing that all of this pain stems from the fact we are sinful.
When we read stories like Peter and John healing the man at the temple gate, the question I’m always left with is, where has our confidence in God gone? Why is it we read these stories in scripture, but we don’t see them happening or hear them being talked about in our churches today? Why do we not have the same confidence that Peter and John displayed when they walked up to this crippled man and said, ‘in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’
https://youtu.be/UGsJ8wJ_YV4 https://www.portstewartpresbyterian.org/prayer-diary-8/