Dear Great Hills Family,

On Sunday please wear your spiritual steel-toed boots!  It will be intense as we address the topic of genuine worship.  Be in prayer for the services on Sunday as we gather to worship our awesome God as a church family.  Our text is Romans 12:1-2; take some time this weekend to read over this text slowly and ask God to speak to you and change you by His Holy Spirit as you read the inspired Word of God. 

One of the great blessings of true worship is that through worship we can know and do God’s will for our lives.  God’s will is not some mysterious prize with which He tantalizes us.  He wants us to know His will; however, He wants us to be first and foremost concerned with knowing Him!  As we passionately worship Him, know Him, and love Him with all that we are, we will clearly know His will.

A radiant Christian is one who worships God by presenting him- or herself to the Lord as a living sacrifice, one who is holy and acceptable to the Lord.  But the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar!  Ask God to help you put your life on the altar of dedication to Him every moment of every day and ask Him to empower you so you can worship Him. 

Worship that pleases God is from both our lips and our lives.  We cannot compartmentalize our lives into either the “sacred” or the “secular” boxes; we must present all that we are to the Lord.  We accomplish this by not being squeezed into the world’s mold by the pressures of life, but instead by being transformed by the renewing of our minds.  God’s Word changes us everyday from the inside out so we know God’s will for our lives and we enjoy living life to the fullest.   As a result, we will testify with our words and actions out of the overflow.  This is radiant living and it starts with us as believers presenting ourselves to the Lord as a living sacrifice to Him. 

It is really exciting to see so many of our people on mission with God this summer.  We have teams leaving for Cleveland, Galveston, Ukraine, and Honduras, so please be in prayer for our folks as they are on these mission trips.    With that, remember that we live on a mission field right here in Austin, Texas.  Keep on investing in people and inviting them to our church.

Sunday evening we are having our Family Swim Night at Veterans Park from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.  I have heard that this was a blast last year.  I know many of our families will want to go and enjoy one of the purposes of the church—fellowship.  We are also having our evening worship service at 6:15 pm.  I invite you to join Ashley and me as we meet in the Great Hall for worship and to hear Bill Muench continue our 1 John series as he preaches from 1 John 4.

Please keep praying for my family and me.  We have important decisions to make regarding our children’s education and we also would dearly love for someone to buy our lovely home in Greenwood, Arkansas!  Thanks for praying for us.  We love you and I am blessed to serve as your pastor.

Danny Forshee

Jeremiah 29:11