Mount of Olives Church

A class of students were asked to list what they considered to be the Seven Wonders of the World. Though there was some disagreement: Egypt’s Great Pyramids The Taj Mahal The Grand Canyon The Panama Canal The Empire State Building St. Peter’s Basilica; And China’s Great Wall...received the most votes from the students. While gathering the votes, the teacher noticed that one student, a quiet girl, hadn’t turned in her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The quiet girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there are so many.” “Well, tell us what you have and maybe we can help.” She hesitated a little, and said, “Then I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: 1. To Touch; 2. To Taste; 3. To See; 4. To Hear; 5. To Feel; 6. To Laugh; and 7. To Love.” The teacher was startled; and the room was so quiet that you c...

The first announcement of Christmas took place in the Garden of Eden. After the devil tempted Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden tree, God made this announcement to the devil: Genesis 3:15 (Amplified Bible) “And I will put enmity (open hostility) Between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.” Right then and there, God declared He would rescue His now lost creation. A Savior would be sent. And while this Savior would be bruised on the cross, He would “fatally bruise” the devil. This is what Christmas is all about – God would come to do battle with “sin, death and the devil” and win. Pray with me: Heavenly Father, even when we failed You in the Garden of Eden, You responded in love, and announced Your plan of rescue. Help us, this Christmas, to stay focused on the rescue mission You have performed through Jesus our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. Yours because of Him, Pastor Joh...

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”- William Faulkner Genesis 19:26 ESV But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. In Genesis 19, there is the story of Lot being told by two angels to take his family and leave Sodom and Gomorrah, for the region was going to be destroyed. They were told they should not look back once they leave. However, as they were leaving, Lot’s wife made a serious mistake. She did look back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Often, this is true for many of us. We resist doing something new and different. We often want to look back to the “good old days”, which were also filled with troubles. However, for us to grow and develop in the ways God is asking, we cannot look back. We cannot be captive to the past. The past does not define us, but God’s grace leading us into the future does. So, don’t look back. Look forward for God’s vision. Ask God to do a new work in your life. Pray ...

"Going once, going twice, sold for $7,000.00!", the auctioneer said right before his gavel hit the table. Rita Coors was elated. She'd just purchased a porcelain mask, hand painted by John Denver. She couldn't wait to hold it in her hands. As the auctioneer at the 1997 Charity Celebrity Ball for Hospice of Metropolitan Denver handed her the mask, it slipped through her fingers and shattered into a million pieces on the floor. She didn't demand her money back or abandon the broken piece of art. Instead, Mrs. Coors picked up the pieces and took them home with her. Later, she decided to place the broken pieces around a collection of John Denver photographs. She made something beautiful out of the accident. Now, she not only had a souvenir from a celebrity, but a story to tell as well. This is what God does with people all the time. He can take bad situations and turn them into something good. We need to look at life from this perspective as well. This is what Joseph ...

There is an old story I like to tell about a man who had a garden filled with beautiful flowers. As he was working in the garden, a man walked by and said, “That sure is a beautiful garden you and God have.” And the gardener responded by saying, “You should have seen it when God took care of it by Himself.” When I remember this story, it reminds me of another garden – the Garden of Eden, where God created Adam and Eve and placed them in this beautiful garden with the instructions to take care of and make it prosper (Gen 2). In fact, He gave to them the authority to take care of everything He had created, and this is still expected of us today. We are meant to work. Work was in the world before sin was in the world. The Bible says if someone does not work, neither shall they eat. Work gives us purpose and the opportunity to be used by God for His purposes in the world; no matter the work as long as it is moral and ethical work. So, we are not meant to sit around and watch and complain. ...