Saturday Vespers: Come to the Water

And Jesus said : Come to the water

Stand by My side.

I know you are thirsty You won't be denied

I felt ev'ry tear drop

When in darkness you cried And I strove to remind you

That for those tears I died

Lord Jesus, you have called us and we have found you. You feel our pain, our joy and our challenges and are with us through it all.

we thank you for providing us with parents who brought us to you. We pray for all those who have gone before us to you, parents, father, mother, husband, wife, aunts and uncles and friends, as we remember them not only today but every day. We thank you for our time with them.

Thank You for the gift of this new day. May this Saturday be a day of rest, renewal, and peace. Fill our hearts with gratitude for the blessings in our lives.

We pray for healing for the sick, comfort for the grieving, and hope for the discouraged. For financial health, physical health and healing and emotional strength for those who need it. For a Pastor in India who's wife is suffering from stage IV cancer - we ask for your miracle of healing. For a senior - relief from pain in her back and hips and renewed mobility.

Ben requests prayer for his Mum that the skin cancers she has been diagnosed with yesterday, will be completely and successfully removed on Friday 13th December. Please pray that all cancer cells will be removed and that she will be 100% cancer free after the surgery. Please pray that God will comfort her and take away her worry and fill her with peace as He protects her and His healing hands will be upon her.

Anonymous requests us to pray for healing for her husband, mom and dad.

Trishey and Tanu ask for prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Rajeev P prays For his personal life with Jesus and giving him wisdom and strength through tough times

Sara says "Please join me in prayer for my mom. She has a severe bacterial infection for 8 weeks now (2 months) and she slips into bouts almost of hysteria. There is demonic influence with it because she has demons come to her in the night telling her she is going to die soon. Please pray for my whole family for deliverance from generational strongholds and for my mom to be healed".

Lord Jesus, May Your love and grace surround us all.

Pastor Rajiv's Mid-Week Message

 

What's in it for Me?

“Religion today is not transforming people— it is being transformed by people. It is not raising the moral level of society— it is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling, accepting its surrender.” - A. W. TOZER (1897-1963)

These words reflect the true state of society and Christianity today. As Christians, do we embody Christianity? Or do we take what is convenient and ignore or justify the rest.

Christianity is not a convenience. It is a way of life to be led by emulating Christ for the Glory of our Father in Heaven. Don't we pray that? When we help someone in need is it for Gods glory or our own? When we perform church activities, is it for our own name to be up in lights or for the body of Christ? When we pray for someone to be healed is it for Gods glory or because we just like that person? Do we use the church as a social and networking platform or THE house of God? Do we follow Christ with a zero agenda ?

The fact is today's society views every thing with the lens of WIFM (what's in it for me) instead of "what's in it for God".

We cant pick and choose as we do. Living the Christian life means going out of our comfort zone and our "convenience zone", with a zero agenda. It means taking a step back from self glorification.

Christianity is not supposed to be the surrender of the church but our own surrender to God. It can involve surrendering small things throughout the day, or surrendering bigger things like hopes and dreams. Are we ready for that or is it an inconvenience?

A Small Peg in the Wall

                                          

A Pastor in Haiti related this parable to make a very strong point. We relate it as it is:

A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2000. Another man wanted to buy it very badly, but he was a poor man and he couldn't give the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house to the man for $1000. But the reduced price came with a stipulation. The owner would sell the house, but he would keep ownership of a large nail, protruding from over the front door.

Several years later, the original owner decided he wanted to buy the house back. Understandably, the new owner was unwilling to sell.

As a result, the original owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog in the street, and hung it from the nail he still owned. Soon, the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell to the owner of the nail.

The Haitian pastor concluded the story with these words: "If we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotten garbage on it."

The Coffee Story

The coffee story is quite a common analogy to human nature. If you are carrying a cup of hot coffee and someone jostles your hand, the coffee in the cup (or whatever is in it) spills over.

Similarly, in humans, hidden feelings, frustrations, fear etc spill over and out of us when our life is jostled by circumstances or someone's behaviour. We can take some ones advice negatively and react or some thing which hurts us.

In our life stresses and "jostles" are inevitable.

Consider the cup to be the heart and mind and whatever is in it to be the coffee. Whatever we fill in the cup is what will spill out, when jostled.

King David's cup ran over with Gods goodness and provision in his life because he recognised God. He understood His works. He talked, God answered and he listened. David was Gods friend. King David's heart was filled with God. His cup ran over with God.

Today let us meditate on ourselves: when we are under stress what spills out of our cup? Can I fill my heart with the Spirit of God rather than anger, abuse and violence so that when I am jostled, His spirit spills over?

"You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup runneth over. ."

Quotes to Inspire

 

"God never said that the journey would be easy, but He did say that the arrival would be worthwhile." — Max Lucado

"You are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read." — John MacArthur

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." — C.S. Lewis

"It is not the trials in your life that develop or destroy you, but rather your response to those hardships." — Charles Stanley

"If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things. It is we, of course, to whom things look 'little' or 'big.'" — Elisabeth Elliot

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." — Chuck Swindoll

"The greater your knowledge of the goodness and grace of God on your life, the more likely you are to praise Him in the storm." — Matt Chandler

"It is great to be faced with the impossible, for nothing is impossible if one is meant to do it. Wisdom will be given, and strength. When the Lord leads, He always strengthens." — Amy Carmichael

"Life is God's novel. Let him write it." — Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." — Saint Augustine

"When I consider the cross of Christ, how can anything that I do be called a sacrifice?" — Amy Carmichael

"One of the Devil's great lies is that the path to a fulfilling life is to live for one's self." — Andrew B. Ray

"If not for the tests in our lives some of us would not learn to pray." — Aminata Coote