Scripture - Mark 1:35 - "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, went off alone to a quiet place where He prayed."

Observation - Mark is not much for detail, yet he gives us a lot of detail in this passage. He tells us that it was very early, still dark and that Jesus left the house and went to a quiet place alone. I think these details are important. My daily time with God is critical not only to my ministry and discipleship, but also to my well-being as a person. It is obvious that Jesus thought it should be done first thing, alone and separate, before the stresses and pressures of the day kicked in. It was also something He did every day.

Application - I cannot look at my daily devotions as a box to check or as a trivial part of my life with Jesus. It matters, not just for my sake, but also for the sake of my children who need to grow up witnessing my devotion in the same way the disciples witnessed it in Jesus. I know that hurry is the by-product of poor planning, poor stewardship of my time and misplaced priorities. I know constant hurry can destroy my soul. That is why I need to stay committed to an early, unrushed time with God each day, to connect to my Lord and to restore my soul. It is not a matter of not having time. It is a matter of stewarding the time God has given me, the same amount everyone gets, so that what really matters happens.

Prayer - Lord, help me to crave You "as the deer pants for the water" so that I will truly find joy in my daily time with you and my soul can be refreshed. Help me to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life so that You and I can connect more fully. I love You Lord. Amen.

COMING UP! 

 2014 GIC  - "Extend" 

February 21-23 

 Our Biblical Theme:  Zechariah 9:9-10

More Details Below

Gearing up for GIC 

The start of each New Year brings with it the exciting lead up to our annual Global Impact Celebration, or GIC. It is very appropriate that GIC is sandwiched between Christmas and Easter because the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ provides the foundational message of the Church's mission. If you have been around The Family Church any length of time, you will hear it said repeatedly... "Missions is not a program of the church, it is the very reason for our existence." The reason that we have a Global Impact Celebration every year is to make sure that we never lose that vision, that call, that sacred trust, given to us by King Jesus!

Back in September, we unveiled the theme of our 2014 GIC - "Extend." Now we present the dates, February 21-23, our graphic theme, and our biblical theme:  Zechariah 9:9-10 that says, 

"Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!           See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth."

READ ON

Pollen Fossils and Flowering Plants a,b,c 

  Stephen F. Larner, PhD    

Figure 1: Tiny pollen grain, 1 of 6 different flower pollen found in rock samples believed to be deposited about 243 million years ago. Scale bar=10 mm. Image: Hochuli and Feist-Burkhardt through guardianlv.com

Evolutionists still cannot get their story straight. According to their faith, most paleontologists believe flowering plants, or angiosperms, started evolving 135 million years ago and diversified to the point they became the dominant form of plant life 45 million years later. New discoveries, however, found floral origins and diversity to be at least another 108 million years older than predicted. Paleobotanists, Peter Hochuli and Susanne Feist-Burkhardt wrote, "In this paper we focus on fossil evidence, presenting the so far oldest angiosperm-like pollen from the Middle Triassic (ca. 243 Ma [million years]), a record that predates the generally accepted first occurrence of angiosperm pollen by more than 100 Ma."1

These fossilized flower pollen discoveries forced a shift, again, in the ever-changing story of plant evolution. Hochuli exclaimed, "We believe that even highly cautious scientists will now be convinced that flowering plants evolved long before the Cretaceous"(before dinosaurs).

Flowers are too fragile to be reliably fossilized so flower pollen stand in their stead. "The earliest accepted records are essentially based on dispersed pollen grains, which due to their high numbers and their high preservation potential represent the most appropriate tool to trace the timing of early angiosperm evolution"1.