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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. Moeover 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 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. May these verses challenge us all at the start of this new year to be a people of prayer. 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.) Church Services Sunday morning at 11:00am in church (and also available online via FaceBook) (Sunday morning) scripture reading: - Psalm 16; Luke 24 v 1-12; Mathew 28 v 1-26 Doctrine Class - Sunday afternoon in church (and also available online via FaceBook) (Sunday afternoon) scripture reading: - Philippians 1 v 6, 2 v 13; Romans 8 v 8, 30, 37, 38; 1 Corinthians 11 v 20-32 (The final perseverance of the saints) Sunday evening at 6:30pm in church (and also available online via FaceBook) (Sunday evening) scripture reading: - Mark 16 v 1-20; John 20 v 1-18; Luke 24 v 1-12 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 - (No Preface) Proverbs 18 Preface - After saluting the saints at Colosse, Paul testifieth his thankfulness to God for the good account he had heard of their faith and love; and his continual prayers for their improvement in spiritual knowledge, right practice, and thanksgiving to God for the benefits of redemption by his Son. He sheweth them the exalted nature and mediatorial office of Christ, by whom they, who were once enemies, were now reconciled, if they continued true to the gospel, whereof he Paul was made a minister to preach it to the Gentiles. Collossians 1 Daily Light - Morning My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. - He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? - All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. - As having nothing, and yet possessing all things. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. - The LORD GOD is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withold from them that walk uprightly. - The living God...giveth us richly all things to enjoy. - God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. Phil. 4.19; Mt. 6.33; Ro. 8.32; 1 Co. 3.21-23; 2 Co. 6.10 Ps. 23.1; Ps. 84.11; 1 Tim. 6.17; 2 Co. 9.8 Daily Light - Evening What communion hath light with darkness? Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. - Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Darkness hath blinded his eyes. - Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. - Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light. 2 Co. 6.14; Jn. 3.19; 1 Th. 5.5 1 Jn. 2.11; Ps. 119.105 Ps. 74.20; 1 Jn. 4.7-8 Pro. 4.18-19 Jn. 12.46 Eph. 5.8 A Puritans Catechism Q 26 - Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist? A - Christ's humiliation consistted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time. Of The Lord's Supper Chapter 30 PARAGRAPH 1 The supper of the Lord Jesus was instituted by him the same night wherein he was betrayed, to be observed in his churches, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance, and showing to all the world the sacrifice of himself in his death,1 confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits thereof, their spiritual nourishment, and growth in him, their further engagement in, and to all duties which they owe to him; and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other.2 1 1 Cor. 11:23–26 2 1 Cor. 10:16–17,21 Robert Murray M'Cheyne - God Makes A Path - Daily Devoional Readings His glory reflected For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. - Isaiah 60 v 2 It has long been discovered that colour is nothing in the object, but is all thrown upon it by the sun, and reflected back again. The beautiful colours with which this lovely world is adorned all proceed from the sun. His glory is seen upon the earth. It is all the gift of the sun that the grass is of that refreshing green, and the rivers are lines of waving blue. It is all the gift of the sun that the flowers are tinged with their thousand glories, that the petal of the rose has its delicate blush, and the lily, that neither toils nor spins, a brightness that is greater than Solomon's. Now, my dear souls, this is the way in which you may be justified. You are dark, and vile, and worthless in yourselves; but Christ's glory shall be seen on you. If you only consent to take Christ for your surety, His divine righteousness is all imputed to you; His sufferings, His obedience are both yours.
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