It's great to be home!  Thank you so very much for your thoughts and prayers while I was away visiting my family in Arkansas.  As you already know,  my daughter, Bridget, gave birth to my second grandbaby and first grandson,  Kohen Jace Maxell,  on Thursday morning by C-section.   He weighed 8 lb. 8 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.  Both mother and son are doing fine and are now at home.  Cindi will be staying in Arkansas until the 23rd to help.   Once again,  God has blessed us with  riches beyond our  ability to understand.   Faith - Family - Friendship -- these are true riches! A special thank you to Brother Dennison, Brother Arlington, and Brother Deadmon for teaching and preaching while I was away. This Sunday we will conclude our series of lessons:  God's Questions to Humanity.  On Sunday morning we will speak about God's final question to Adam and Eve:  "What is this you have done?"  Do we really grasp the seriousness of sin?  Do we really understand what sin does to us, to our family, to our friends, to our society, to God?  Do we really understand the consequences of sin, both here and into eternity? On Sunday night we will turn back a page or two to question #3:  "Have you sinned?" I mentioned true riches in paragraph one:  FAITH - FAMILY - FRIENDS!  Isn't this true?  Without these riches all the money in the world, all the gold, silver, jewels, oil, and land, all the worldly pleasures, all the power, position, and prestige, these worldly things have absolutely no value whatsoever. “If in this life  only we have hope  in Jesus Christ,”  the Scripture teaches us that we are of all men most miserable.  Our faith in God according to the gospel of Jesus Christ takes us through this life with happiness and into life everlasting. I remember my brother taking his first trophy buck one New Year's day and trying to contact me, my dad, or  any  member of  our family  with the great news.  At last he found one of us at home to receive the news. He  told me  later just how  much it meant to  him to have a family to share both the good and the bad in life.   Some among us have little or no family in times of happiness and sorrow.  Let us remember that as the church of Christ, we are family. Friendship is such a wonderful blessing.  You and I simply cannot make it on our own.  We can do so very little to bring about positive changes in our world alone; however, together we can accomplish great things for ourselves, for our community, for the church, for God.  It was Solomon who said, "Two are better than one..." and gave the reasons why.  Jesus began His ministry after His baptism inviting the twelve apostles to minister with  Him as He  went about doing good.   "Two by two"  was the  way to go reach  the world for Christ during Jesus' ministry and during the early days in the church.  The same method works effectively today. Let us have greater appreciation for these riches in our lives:  faith, family, and friendship. I look forward to our being together to celebrate these riches at our next appointed meeting time.