Articles

Bulletin - September 6, 2020

September 6, 2020

 

Hymn of the Day

Tune:  "How Firm a Foundation", p. 268

 

With harps and with vials there stands a great throng,

In the presence of Jesus and sings this new song;

"To Him who hath loved us and washed us from sin,

To Him be the glory forever, Amen"

 

All these once were sinners, defiled in His sight,

Now arrayed in pure garments, Their voices unite;

"To Him who hath loved us and washed us from sin,

To Him be the glory forever, Amen"

 

He maketh the rebel a priest and a king,

He hath bought us and taught us this new song to sing;

"To Him who hath loved us and washed us from sin,

To Him be the glory forever, Amen"

 

Aloud in His praises our voices shall ring,

So that others, believing, this new song shall sing;

"To Him who hath loved us and washed us from sin,

To Him be the glory forever, Amen"

 

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Today's Hymns: All That Thrills My Soul  #463,

Christ Receiveth Sinful Men #199,

I know Whom I Have Believed #224

 

 

Special Dates: Eric and Katie – 7 ~ Elaine Grimsley - 7

Jean Rozeboom – 12 ~ Jim Laird – 16

 

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But He said to me,

"My grace is sufficient for you,

for My power is made perfect in weakness."

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,

so that Christ's power may rest on me.

~2 Corinthians 12.9

 

The power of God in us is always experienced within the context of our own weakness. The one who operates under the power of God does not feel powerful. Rather, he is filled with a sense of his own inabilities such that he knows that if he must rely on his own power, nothing at all will be accomplished.

 

God's power in us does not make us feel strong; God's power in us works mighty things despite our evident weakness. We can be certain that if we desire to serve the Lord in this world, we must do so by His power, and that if we are ever to be gifted with the power of God to do good for His people, we will be first be stripped of our own power and made to know our weakness for, when we are weak, then and only then are we strong.    -Joe

 

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God designs that those whom He sanctifies shall tarry awhile in this present evil world, that their own experience of temptations may teach them how great the deliverance is, which God has wrought for them.  -David Brainerd

 

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He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,

and brake their bands in sunder.  ~Psalm 107:14

 

This is what God has done for His born again, redeemed people, for the darkness mentioned here is a picture of the unconverted life. In such darkness, we are ignorant of God; we are unaware of the atoning work of Christ; we are unaware of the regenerating power of God the Holy Spirit.

 

What darkness we are in! It is an intellectual darkness; it is a darkness of our understanding; it is a darkness of the heart and will, which act and react upon one another. Darkness of the heart results in darkness of the understanding. We are dead in trespasses and sins and are guided by a dead nature, a nature veiled in darkness!  Now we see that there is no human help, no human ability that can change that state. But, oh! the mighty power of our great God! He can take one who walks in darkness and bring them into the light which is the light of Christ Jesus our Lord. Salvation is in Him and Him alone.   -Wayne Boyd

 

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We hold that a man is never so near grace as when he feels that he can do nothing at all but cry for mercy. But, when he says, "I can pray, I can believe, I can do this or that," the marks of self-sufficiency are still on his brow.  -Henry Mahan

 

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°who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. ~1 Timothy 6.6

 

Quite often, the poor struggle with this principle as false prophets hold out to them the promise of greater riches through the performance of "godly" activities. These prophets of profit prey upon man's covetous nature and, in this way, are able to extract great sums of money from the poor by leveraging their financial discontent. The result is that the discontented poor person is robbed of what little he has and is set on the pursuit of soul-damning false "godliness." He is robbed of this world's riches and at the same time he is set on the wrong path to eternal riches.

 

But, in prosperous cultures (such as ours here, in the USA), this discontent can be used by our adversary in a different way to trip us up and cost us much in this life. It is one thing to have reached your potential of riches in this world and learn to be content with that. It is another thing altogether to have the potential for much more of this world's blessings but to choose, instead, to be content with what one already has, knowing that the pursuit of more of this world's blessing will come at the expense of the pursuit of those things which pertain to godliness. Our Lord had this temptation laid before Him when the evil one said, "I will give you all the kingdoms of the world if you will bow to me." The tempter may come to us with more subtlety, even making our reach for more sound  virtuous, fooling us into thinking that we could do so much more for the Kingdom of God if we were only to spend a little more time pursuing wealth and a little less time pursuing Christ. Yet our Lord said exactly the opposite, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and it's righteousness and all these things (worldly needs) shall be added unto you."

 

Do not fall for the pitch of the greatest con artist of all time. Be content with what you presently have and do not seek more unless you can do so without restraining your pursuit of Christ.   -Joe