Daily Readings for Monday 9th 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 - The time when Zephaniah prophesied. God's severe judgment against Judah for various sins.
Zephaniah 1
Preface - Jesus is accused before Pilate, who sendeth him to Herod. Herod disappointed in his expectations mocketh him, and sendeth him back. Pilate willing to release Jesus, is prevailed on by the clamours of the people to release Barabbas, and give Jesus to be crucified. Being led to the place of execution, Jesus biddeth the woman who lamented him to weep rather for themselves and their children: he is crucified between two malefactors: prayeth for his enemies; is scoffed at; reviled by one of the malefactors, but confessed by the other, to whom he promiseth a place in paradise. The unusual darkness, and rending of the veil of the temple: Christ crieth unto God, and expireth: the centurion's confession of him. Joseph of Arimathaea beggeth his body, and burieth it. The women prepare spices for the end of the sabbath.
Luke 23


Daily Light - Morning
To do justice and judgment
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? - Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. - To love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. - Mary...sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word... One thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Pro. 21.3; Mi. 6.8; 1 Sa. 15.22; Mk. 12.33
Hos. 12.6; Lu. 10.39,42
Phil. 2.13


Daily Light - Evening
The spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. - There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. - The first man Adam was made a living soul. - The spirit of man that goeth upward.

Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord... We are confident...and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. - With Christ; which is far better. - I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Ec. 12.7; Ge. 2.7; Job 32.8; 1 Co. 15.45; Ec. 3.21
2 Co. 5.6,8
Phil. 1.23; 1 Th. 4.13-14
Jn. 14.2-3


A Puritans Catechism
Q 29 - How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A - The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.


The 1689
Baptist Confession of Faith
Of Good Works
Chapter 16
PARAGRAPH 2
​
These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith;3 and by them believers manifest their thankfulness,4 strengthen their assurance,5 edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel,6 stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God,7 whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto,8 that having their fruit unto holiness they may have the end eternal life.9
3 James 2:18,22
4 Ps. 116:12–13
5 1 John 2:3,5; 2 Pet. 1:5–11
6 Matt. 5:16
7 1 Tim. 6:1; 1 Pet. 2:15; Phil. 1:11
8 Eph. 2:10
9 Rom 6:22


Robert Murray M'Cheyne - God Makes A Path - Daily Devotional Readings
The idol God hates most
Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?
Hosea 14 v 8

Self-righteousness is the largest idol of the human heart - the idol which man loves most and God hates most. Dearly beloved, you will always be going back to this idol. You are always trying to do something in yourself, to gain God's favour by thinking little of your sin, or by looking to your repentance, tears, prayers; or by looking to your religious exercises, your frames, etc.; or by looking to your graces, the Spirit's work in your heart. Beware of false Christs. Study sanctification to the utmost, but make not a Christ of it. God hates this idol more than all others, because it comes in the place of Christ; it sits on Christ's throne. Just as the worship of the Virgin Mary is the worst of all kinds of idolatry, because it puts her in the place of Christ, so self-righteousness is the idol God hates most, for it sits on the throne of Christ. Dash it down, dear friends; let it never appear again. It is like Manasseh's carved image in the holiest of all. When Manasseh came home an altered man to Jerusalem, would not his first visit be to the holiest of all? With eager hand he would draw the veil aside; and when he found the carved image, he would dash it down from the throne of God. Go and do like wise. If you felt God's love freely by the righteousness without works, then why would you go back to this grim idol? What have I to do any more with idols?