Daily Readings for Sunday 29th 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 - The priests are sharply reproved for profaning the covenant which was given them; and the people for marrying strange wives, and treacherously putting away their former ones; and for impiety.
Malachi 2
Preface - Jesus is scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked and buffeted by the soldiers. Pilate declareth his innocence: the Jews charge him with assuming the little of the Son of God. Pilate upon further examination is more desirous to release him, but overcome with the clamours of the Jews delivereth him to be crucified. He is led to Golgotha, and crucified between two malefactors. Pilate's inscription on his cross. The soldiers part his garments. He commendeth his mother to John; receiveth vinegar to drink, and dieth. The legs of the others are broken, and the side of Jesus pierced. Joseph of Arimathaea beggeth his body, and assisted by Nicodemus burieth it.
John 19


Daily Light - Morning
Understanding what the will of the Lord is.

This is the will of God, even your sanctification. - Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. - This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. - We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

We...do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. - The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe.
Eph. 5.17; 1 Th. 4.3; Job 22.21; Jn. 17.3; 1Jn. 5.20
Col. 1.9; Eph. 1.17-19


Daily Light - Evening
Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.

Enoch walked with God. - Can two walk together, except they be agreed? - It is good for me to draw near to God.

The LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you... When they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them. - Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way....and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
Jas. 4.8; Ge. 5.24; Am. 3.3; Ps. 73.28
2 Chr. 15.2,4; Lu. 24.29
Jer. 29.11-13
He. 10.19-20,21-22


A Puritans Catechism
​Q 49 - Which is the fourth commandment?
A - The fourth commandment is, Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

​
The 1689
Baptist Confession of Faith
Of the Gospel and the Extent of Grace Thereof
Chapter 20
PARAGRAPH 4
​
​Although the gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is, as such, abundantly sufficient thereunto; yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened or regenerated, there is moreover necessary an effectual insuperable work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul, for the producing in them a new spiritual life;8 without which no other means will effect their conversion unto God.9
8 Ps. 110:3; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 1:19–20
9 John 6:44; 2 Cor. 4:4,6


Robert Murray M'Cheyne - God Makes A Path - Daily Devotional Readings
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3 v 18

In a mirror you will observe that every feature of the face is reflected - both large and small features. Now our soul should be a mirror of Christ; we should reflect His features; for every grace in Christ, there should be a counterpart grace in us.