Daily Readings for Monday 16th December 2024

Prayer - Monday
- Give thanks to God for salvation and the redemption that is found alone through Jesus Christ.
- Give thanks to God for granting us particular skills and abilities that we might fulfil our vocations (jobs, studies, family responsibilities and time we spend    alone). (Ecclesiastes 9.10, Ephesians 6.6)
- Pray for the Lord's blessing on the working week for us and all in the congregation.
- Pray the Lord would grant us grace to be good ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5.20)


Church Services
Sunday morning at 11:00am in church (and also available online via Facebook)
Doctrine Class - in church (after lunch) (and also available online via Facebook)
Sunday evening at 6:30pm in church (and also available online via Facebook)
Bible Study and Prayer
Wednesday evening at 7:00pm in church (and also available online via Facebook)
Lunch Hour Service
Thursday afternoon between 1:00pm and 1:30pm in church (and also available online via Facebook)
Outreach/Witnessing
Saturday morning at Victoria Street (outside the big Boots store) for 10:30am (across the road from Town Hall - No. 64). Afterwards we go back to church for prayer.  


Daily Reading
Preface - Under the type of Joshua the high priest receiving clean garments, and a covenant of promise from God, Christ, the Branch and corner stone, is foretold.
Zechariah 3
Preface - Christ feedeth five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes: he withdraweth himself from the people, who would have made him a king, and walketh on the sea: the multitude flocking to him, he reproveth their carnal views, and requireth their faith in him whom God had sent. They ask a sign like that of the manna in the wilderness, he declareth himself to be that the bread of life from heaven, and that none can live but by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Many of his disciples taking offence at this, he sheweth his meaning to be spiritual. Many leaving him, Peter in the name of the twelve professeth steadfast faith in him; Jesus pronounceth one of them to be a devil.
John 6


Daily Light - Morning
Having love his own which were in the world,
he loved them unto the end.

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them... I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. - Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. - A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. - Christ...loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.
Jn. 13.1; Jn. 17.9-10,15-16
Jn. 15.9; Jn. 15.13-14; Jn. 13.34
Phil. 1.6; Eph. 5.25-26


Daily Light - Evening
The deep things of God.

Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. - It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. - The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our  children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man...that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
1 Co. 2.10; Jn. 15.15; Mt. 13.11; Deu. 29.29
1 Co. 2.12
Eph. 3.14-16,17-19


A Puritans Catechism​
Q 36 - What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A - The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united in Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection.

​
The 1689
Baptist Confession of Faith
Of the Perseverance of the Saints
Chapter 17
PARAGRAPH 2
​
​This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election,4 flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and union with him,5 the oath of God,6 the abiding of his Spirit, and the seed of God within them,7 and the nature of the covenant of grace;8 from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof.
4 Rom. 8:30, 9:11,16
5 Rom. 5:9, 10; John 14:19
6 Heb. 6:17–18
7 1 John 3:9
8 Jer. 32:40


​Robert Murray M'Cheyne  - God Makes A Path - Daily Devotional Readings
The preciousness of Christ to the believer
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious:
1 Peter 2 v 7

Consider how precious Christ is. 'In him is life eternal.' In Him there is pardon for the vilest of sinners. In Him there is sweet peace of conscience - peace with God. In Him there is rest for the weary soul - the way to the Father - an open door into the fold of God. In Him there is a fountain of living waters, unsearchable riches, full supplies of grace and truth for weak and weary souls. In Him there is acquittal at the judgment day, and a glorious crown. Oh, should you not leave all for this? Shall a lust, or a pleasure, or a game, or the smile of a friend, keep you from all this? 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.'