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The
theme of our conference was the verse from Psalm 34:2 "I will extol the
Lord at all times" and the text for pondering was Philippians 1:9-11
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in
knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what
is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled
with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to
the glory and praise of God."
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There
were many prayers before the conference, and our Lord answered them and
matched His blessing to our prayers; the Holy Spirit really walked
among us.
The first speech was: "That your love may abound more and more" (v. 9).
Why should it abound more and more? Because when we love someone, we
always try to think how to help them and serve them better. It is a
process which never ends. Our love is always to grow to become bigger
and better. Why in knowledge? Because we need to know the person whom
we love; otherwise we love just an illusion. We can create an illusion
about our spouse, our brothers and sisters in church, even about God.
And after a while we can be disappointed. Then we change our spouse,
our church or we abandon God. And what is the true love? 1Corinthians13
gives the answer. It shows us ourselves as in a mirror; if we are
sincere, we must repent of anything in our lives which is unlovely.
The next speech was: "To discern what is best" (v. 10). This is a whole
life process. We always have to decide. Take the example of the good
choice we see in the Martha and Mary story. "Mary has chosen what is
better" said Jesus. We need to choose our priorities in our lives
carefully. Some people choose success, good position, a house, a good
car, interesting holiday… They dedicate whole their lives to these
goals. And the end is exhaustion, depression, dissatisfaction, drug
addiction and so. The apostle Paul advises us: "Be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what
God's will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:2).
Only this priority in our life is good and correct, it does not lead us
away from Jesus.
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The last speech was: "The purpose of our lives – bringing the fruit of righteousness" (v. 11)
The sister spoke about the peace which we receive when we give it.
James 3:13-18 "And the fruit of righteousness is planted in peace for
those who make peace." Peace is the fruit of righteousness. Sometimes
we have secret places in our inner being and we do not let anyone come
in. We may be looking for acclaim and longing for success. But it is
better to look for peace and love. How are we winning in this? How can
we stand without our hearts full of peace? At work when our boss tell
us something unpleasant? In our marriage, where each of us has our own
opinion and want to assert it by force? Or in the church where we want
to show others who we are? And peace goes hand by hand with
forgiveness. This good fruit is not the result of our effort but we are
given it by Jesus Christ. "I am the vine, you are the branches: he who
is in me at all times as I am in him, gives much fruit, because without
me you are able to do nothing." (John 15:5). Why should we give fruit?
To praise our Lord.
We were each given in our hands a historical brochure, "Gifted with
Grace," issued for this special occasion. When we read it, we could
realise again just how good God is to us. How much He empowered our
sisters during this whole time that our Women's Department has been in
existence. How much work, courage and effort had to be put in over the
years since it was formed, right up until now. We received really very
much from His hands.
We did not only remember and look back but we look ahead too at the
same time, as it was said by our dear Yona Pusey, who was our precious
guest together with our President Livija Lame. Livija greeted us on
Saturday evening and told us about the work of EBWU. It was very nice,
such a blessed time we were able to spend together.
Ludmila Englerova
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