Daily Readings for Sunday 1st December 2024

Dear Congregation,

I want to thank all of you who have prayed and supported the work of the Gospel through the church in 2023 and this first month of 2024. It is a great joy to minister at Westminster Baptist and I love the church here greatly. Through this past year, there have been heart-wrenching tragedies alongside blessings too. This is often the case in Christian life and yet we are called to keep trusting and believing. We often bear the battle scars of past experience and circumstance, as we live in this sinful world and anticipate heaven. We see Mordecai, mocked and scorned for years in Esther and on the brink of execution, yet he latterly knew blessing from God. The most important thing was he was faithful in serving the Lord.

Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful - 1 Corinthians 4.2. This verse especially applies to ministers, church workers, but to all Christians. We are stewards of the oracles of God and to us has the light of the gospel been revealed. We should therefore be striving to be faithful, not popular, faithful. May that be our aim by the grace of God.

In the beginning month in recent years we have spent a week praying together on each day for certain things. As a reminder that with continuing faith that prayer is essential. Key to our hope and joy and endurance and love, and with new resolve to make time to pray regularly alone and with your family and with some group of fellow believers.

Alongside reading the Scriptures these should be our daily routine. There are various encouragements in the Scriptures to pray:
- Pray without ceasing (1 Th. 5:17).
- Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; (Ep. 6:18).
- Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; (Col. 4:2).

These are a few verses of the many that encourage us to pray and undoubtedly set before us a biblical mandate that we should be concerned to pray. Maybe you have fallen out of the 'habit' or relegated prayer to a part time practice; or you only pray when trouble or danger comes. To that end I would ask the church to pray, if led, the suggested topics below so we might pray for the same things (roughly speaking) on the same day to encourage us.

Let us be prayerful people and realise we too need prayer. To say we are praying for someone should be an expression of concern but an indication of our own action to bring the matter before God, before the throne of Grace through the believers mediator and High Priest. Jesus Christ, Paul even requests prayer for himself and those labouring for the Gospel with him twice in 1 and 2 Thessalonians saying 'brethren pray for us'. May we be a prayerful church and prayerful individuals, knowing that we have a prayer hearing and answering God.

Pastor Jonathan Arnold


Daily Prayer - Sunday
- God thanks to God for His character, perfect, unchangeable, the same yesterday today and forever.
- Give thanks to God that we can meet in the church and have fellowship with one another.
- Pray the Lord would grant the preaching of his word power and clarity, and there are ready ears to hear and believe it. (2 Thes. 3.1.)
- Pray we would be granted faithful ministry and good spiritual food from God's Word. (1 Peter 2.2.)


Daily Reading
Preface - God's controversy with his people for ingratitude. What service is acceptable to him. He reproveth them for their injustice, and idolatry.
Micah 6
Preface - The Pharisees murmur at Christ for receiving sinners. The parable of the lost sheep, and piece of silver, and of the prodigal son.
Luke 15


Daily Light - Morning
A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind,
and a covert from the tempest.

Forasmuch...as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. - The man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts. - I and my Father are one.

He that dwelleth in the secret place is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. - Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble. - Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
Isa. 23.2; He. 2.14; Zech. 13.7; Jn. 10.30
Ps. 91.1; Isa. 4.6; Ps. 121.5-6
Ps. 61.2; Ps. 32.7; Isa. 25.4


Daily Light - Evening
Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.

The new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me...so shall your seed and your name remain.

We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I john saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
Isa. 65.17; Isa. 66.22
2 Pe. 3.13
Rev. 21.1-5


A Puritans Catechism
Q 21 - How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A - Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.


The 1689
Baptist Confession of Faith
Of Saving Faith
Chapter 14
PARAGRAPH 2
​
​By this faith a Christian believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word for the authority of God himself,4 and also apprehends an excellency therein above all other writings and all things in the world,5 as it bears forth the glory of God in his attributes, the excellency of Christ in his nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in his workings and operations: and so is enabled to cast his soul upon the truth consequently believed;6 and also acts differently upon that which each particular passage thereof contains; yielding obedience to the commands,7 trembling at the threatenings,8 and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come;9 but the principle acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, and resting upon him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.10
4 Acts 24:14
5 Ps. 19:7-10, 69:72
6 2 Tim. 1:12
7 John 15:14
8 Isa. 116:2
9 Heb. 11:13
10 John 1:12; Acts 16:31; Gal. 2:20; Acts 15:11


Robert Murray M'Cheyne - God Makes A Path - Daily Devotional Readings
Christ manifested
And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
1 John 3 v 5

O beloved, if Jesus had not been manifested, you had never been saved. It would have been quite righteous in God to have kept His Son in His own bosom - to have kept that jewel in His own place upon the throne of heaven. God would have been the same lovely God; but we would have lain down in a burning hell. If that Eternal Life which was with the Father - if He had remained in His glory as the Living One - then you and I would have borne our own curse. But he was manifested. - 'God was manifest in the flesh - justified in the Spirit - seen of angels - believed on in the world - received up into glory.'

John saw Him - he saw His lovely countenance, he beheld His glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He saw that better Sun veiled with flesh that could not keep the beans of His Godhead from shining through. He saw Him on the Mount, when His face shone like the sun. He saw Him in the garden, when He lay upon the ground. He saw Him on the cross, when He hung between earth and heaven. He looked upon Him - many a time he looked upon His heavenly countenance - his eye met His eye.

He heard Him - heard the voice that said, 'Let there be light!' He heard all His gracious words - His words, concerning God and the way of peace. He heard Him say to a sinner, 'Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.'

He handled Him - he put his hands in His hands, his arms around His arms, and his head upon His bosom. Perhaps he handled His body when it was taken from the cross - touched the cold clay of Immanuel. O beloved, it is a manifested Christ we declare unto you. It is not the Son in the bosom of the Father - that would never have saved you. It is Jesus manifested in flesh. The Son of God living and dying as man in the stead of sinners; Him we declare unto you.