{"id":812,"date":"2014-02-08T13:20:59","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T17:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=812"},"modified":"2014-04-19T12:29:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T16:29:02","slug":"united-methodist-mens-gathering-2814","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"UMM Gathering  with Pastor Larry (2\/8\/14)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">We held our monthly gathering on Saturday February 8 and had a special &#8220;guest speaker&#8221;- our own Sr. Pastor, the Rev. Larry Potts!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This year we&#8217;ve been looking at different Old Testament characters and trying to learn life lessons from their experiences.\u00a0 Pastor Larry built on our theme by discussing the story of Daniel with us.\u00a0 Actually, the book of Daniel contains six stories (and four visions).\u00a0 We started with the opening chapters and discovered that Daniel was a man of loyalty, integrity, and perseverance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In the opening chapters, we see how the King of Babylon is trying to give Daniel (and his fellow Jews) a new identity.\u00a0 He wants them to &#8220;put on a song&#8221; to his gods.\u00a0 He wants Daniel and his friends to put away their hopes and dreams and even to take on new names and new food.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But Daniel resisted.\u00a0 He could not be unglued from his God.\u00a0 His loyalty and trustworthiness were tested, but he stood true to God.\u00a0 And because he trusted in God, he was successful:<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-shadow'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>1:15<\/strong><\/span> Daniel and his friends rejected the king&#8217;s food and looked healthier than the rest.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>1:20<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Daniel and his friends &#8220;stood out&#8221;.\u00a0 They were &#8220;ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>2:48<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 The king became dependent on Daniel and recognized that &#8220;your God is the God of gods.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>2:30<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel not only interprets the king&#8217;s dream, but he interprets it with brutal honesty.\u00a0 His faith allows him to speak the truth, even if it contains bad news for the king.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">So what about us?\u00a0 Where do people see our faith?\u00a0 Do we stand out somehow?\u00a0 Is God glorified when people look at us and say &#8220;he is a Christian&#8221;?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Loyalty and Trustworthiness don&#8217;t always come easy, but God will use us and let us shine as a light for Him when we remain faithful.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We held our monthly gathering on Saturday February 8 and had a special &#8220;guest speaker&#8221;- our own Sr. Pastor, the Rev. Larry Potts! This year we&#8217;ve been looking at different Old Testament characters and trying to learn life lessons from their experiences.\u00a0 Pastor Larry built on our theme by discussing the story of Daniel with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,52,19,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evrpt","category-fellowship","category-grouppresentations","category-men","category-umm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}