Good
afternoon, and welcome to this Sunday Sermon for Covenant of Hope Ministries. I
am Rev. Laura A. Neff, and the ministry knows me as the Rainbow Minister. You
can find us live Sundays at 12:30 PM ET US and These are our locations online
only:
Our Main Video Feed: Covenant_of_Hope
We have
email and Instant Messenger available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday 10AM to
2PM ET US via Yahoo IM. We’re still working this out between the us as to what
will happen, our Elder, Cal Jennings, and I as our Apostle/Shepherd Mary C.
Michel-Lynch would still be unable to help at this time. The IM is available if
you ask first and identify the reason as being part of the ministry. This IM is
connected through Facebook as well. I will be informing you further in regard
to changes being made. These changes were made due to health reasons. There
will be live sermons, and the sermon length will be shortened dramatically, but
we are unsure as to when that might be.
Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list has grown from last week. This is our current prayer list for this week.
Prayer List: We have many on our prayer list. Some wish to remain anonymous, and others only wish to have their first names mentioned. Our prayer list has grown from last week. This is our current prayer list for this week.
Continue your prayers for Sister Mary. Things haven’t changed
much in her recovery at this point. She is in 24/7 care with a staff that
continuously keeps me informed. She has ingested something that could bring her
harm, but they caught her soon enough to prevent it. Please pray that their
swiftness would in fact assist in efforts to bring her toward finding a method
at recovery. They do have her sitting up in a chair/walker. That’s a great
thing, and God is good!
Pray for our family. There are several things weighing us down,
and they don’t all include my health, or that of any member of the family. We’ve
had a cold/sinus attack spread through our family, every single one of us
affected, please pray that this cold would leave our bodies and our home.
Praise God for the fact that some of those things the doctor’s
determinations included, have indeed helped, and without adding medication, but
instead reducing them. Praise God for the gift of time for one of our financial
problems. Perhaps we might get that improved by His grace. Now, that’s
something to praise God about.
Pray for Elder Cal, as he has still been feeling pretty rotten.
May God provide him wellness, and bring that flicker of hope into a bright and
roaring flame.
Pray for friends Karen, Christie, her son Calvin, Art, Heather,
Chris and his family, Jackie and her father, Debby, Tom, Teresa, Hope, Joe and
his family as they lost his mother-in-law, Robert’s brother and his brother’s
fiancee suffering some serious chaos, and several others.
Phoebe Fair and her family need more prayers as she has gone in
for yet another round of chemotherapy in time for the holidays. Pray that she
might be home for Christmas, in place of the hospital. She has had an infection
and her electrolytes and sodium levels went awry this past week. Keep prayers
up for her recovery. We add prayers for her family in the mourning of her great
grandfather Zig Ziglar, motivational author and speaker, who passed away
recently
We pray for Teresa and Hope during the end of the year for their
issues of many forms.
Pray for Thomas, as he is having a lot of chaos in his life.
Pray for our outreach ministries, and all on their separate
prayer lists, no matter where in this world they would be. Pray for the
families, friends and colleagues of those injured, killed, and affected by the
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. May God’s love shine down on them and comfort
them in this tragedy.
Prayer: Father in heaven, we
thank You for this day and for these who are here to share it with us. We are
blessed in the gifts You have brought to us. We bring to you our friends, our
families, and ourselves for whatever prayers each of us might have. We pray for
solutions to problems, comfort after tragedies, understanding of actions,
reactions, and results of everything seen, heard and experienced this week. We
pray that our faith holds us strong as we enter into the holidays many
celebrate for different reasons. We pray for those whose schooling ends for
winter break, and for those traveling in the very near future. We pray all of
these things in Your Holy Name through our Savior Jesus Christ, and the gift of
the Holy Spirit, Amein and so it shall be.
Opening Song: We Three Kings http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/bc967dd70
Sermon: It is amazing the gifts God would
bring to us, no matter our age, our stature, our circumstances, and more. We
see some amazing and intriguing methods where God and Jesus would share these
very ideals and more. We start here in Psalm
37:25-26 KJV – I have been young, and now am
old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.
Ever
could also be seen as “all the day”. We see mercy in many ways. We have seen
both forsaken and not forsaken men, women and children. It is when we can free
them from pain and sorrow, from death and destruction that we see truth. This
pair of verses speaks of Jesus, and the sacrifice He would make for each and
every one, to spare them from the eternal judgment of death, past, present, and
future. Yet, there are many things we must remember to manage following His
path of truth. We see that as these verses follow in Psalm
37:27-28 KJV – Depart
from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.
For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they
are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
It is not
easy to leave all the forms of evil. In fact, we fight many forms of evil, of
wickedness, daily, sometimes hourly, even minute to minute, whether singularly
or together. The LORD alone can judge. The LORD Jesus Christ was and is given
the most difficult job of all. He must decide whether we live or die eternally.
It has been said that if we live in Christ, we will live a blessed life
forever. It has also been said that if we don’t stay on His path, then we will
die eternally. Yet, even Jesus Himself spoke of falling and being lifted back
up. We see it in the words of James 4:10 KJV –
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he
shall lift you up.
We also
see it earlier in the passage of Micah 7:8 KJV –
Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall,
I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.
There are
other ways to see humility, righteousness, and how we can raise ourselves up
when we fall, through the LORD’s gift of mercy, and that which contains mercy,
unconditional love. This is shared here in Psalm
11:7 KJV – For the righteous the LORD loveth
righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.
Being
upright is no easy thing. Sometimes we fall daily. We can even fall minute by
minute. Yet, God is there to help us pull ourselves out of the dirt, and stand
upright once more. He is able to assist us out of any quagmire, even if it is
one of our own making. That is why God is always with us, He is one with us,
one of us, part of us, always. We just have to realize this, and in some ways
it can be done, more easily than others. It can be seen, and heard, thought,
and spoken, as shared here in Psalm 37:29-31 KJV –
The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell
therein for ever.
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue
talketh of judgment.
The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall
slide.
Too often
there are those of us who blame God for the bad things that happen to us here
on earth. We blame Him for not preventing things, when, in fact, it wouldn’t be
God who has done any such thing. It would actually be wickedness, and the
wicked who share it, as is spoken of here in Psalm
37:32-33 KJV – The wicked watcheth the
righteous, and seeketh to slay him.
The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he
is judged.
Sometimes
we fall into the hands of the wicked, as has happened many times in the
centuries since Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Yet, we see
in our final verse that which Jesus worked for through His life, and His death,
as well as His resurrection. It is foreseen here in Psalm
109:31 KJV – For he shall stand at the right
hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul. We don’t realize that this verse doesn’t speak only
of those who have no money, but also those who are poor in spirit. Remember in Matthew 5:3 KJV – Blessed
are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We must
always remember that even when our spirits are low, and we feel as though we
have been abandoned, He is always with us. He is always here, seen or not, felt
or not, recognized or not. That is what the gift of the Holy Spirit was meant
to portray, to bring to us, and more. Now, that’s something to think about as
we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us saying: After
this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy
name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13 KJV)
Closing Song: You Are Loved http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/c18ddcd3e
Covenant
of Hope Ministries
Our Main Video Feed: Covenant_of_Hope
Scripture
Excerpts: The New Open Bible Study Edition:Copyright © 1990: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, Inc.
Scripture
Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © 1982: E. E. Gaddy and Associates, Inc.
Scripture
Excerpts: Holy Bible: Copyright © circa 1890-1910: International Bible
Press,The John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, PA., USA
Sermon or
Study Copyright © 2012 http://covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com/
Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries and
Poetic-Expressions is not to exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all
that is created through fear together as the rainbow in the darkness.
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