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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 grows or changes
every week. This is our current list.
-Elder Cal Jennings and his sister are asking for prayers
of comfort for their mother, who is slipping away quite fast at age 86. There
are some issues to add to this sorrow and sadness for them, so let us pray for
solutions, comfort, and calm for the family at this sorrowful time.
- Please continue praying for my brother Scott Newman. He
is far, far worse at this time, after a second scary incident while at work on
his second day back with restrictions. I have been in to see him, spending
quite a bit of time Friday and Saturday, ensuring that the ringing in his ears and
the sensitivity to light due to these seizures creates more chaos.
- Please pray for my sister-in-law Fran’s mother, she is
in the hospital with issues regarding her heart.
- Please pray for job opportunities or offers to help
bless Sister Theresa Bogard. Please also pray for her strength as she serves as
our eyes and ears and voice while my brother is in the hospital. Pray for his
crew at his job, so that they realize just how special Scott would be and how
much he truly loves his work.
- Please pray for a dear friend and colleague who has
just learned they might have very serious problems. She has had so many issues
that this week the doctor has insisted on special tests to determine what is
going on. Help me help this friend of mine with strength of compassion and
more.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what
tomorrow brings.
- Pray for our nations that the voice of God be heard through the Spirit.
- Pray for our friends and families that their tomorrows bring blessings and pray our own be the same.
- Pray for our nations that the voice of God be heard through the Spirit.
- Pray for our friends and families that their tomorrows bring blessings and pray our own be the same.
- Pray for those suffering as a result of the terrors
that have occurred just this past week around this world.
- Pray for our sick and wounded that they may heal.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this
is our prayer today for extremely urgent needs for relief of those in far-away
places suffering from crazy weather conditions, the flu and coronavirus
sufferers and losses from those cases, those suffering the aftereffects of
armed gunmen, bombings, and so forth, that their spirits be lifted and calmed. We
pray for those loved ones we have lost and for those loved ones fighting for
their lives. We pray for those who have been any and all types of pain, that
they will be given comfort and healing. We pray for blessings in the midst of
pain, sorrow, terror, and more, so that this year is a better one for all
around us. For each of these we pray in Your Holy Name, through our Savior
Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen and so it shall be.
Opening Song: Natasha Bedingfield ~ Hope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9eqk7Z1O3M
Sermon: This week has been
filled with moments where many are praying for hope, strength for their faith,
and freedom from despair. We have battled illness, and the unknown, together,
through prayer and through this one amazing gift, HOPE. No matter our age, our
personal finances, our location on this planet, we have to know how to seek
HOPE in the midst of despair, pain, frenzy, and all the rest of the stressors
on this earth. This is something God realized would happen, and we find in the
book of Psalms and other locations, where to look toward for hope. We’ll start
with this verse.
Psalm 16:9 KJV – Therefore my heart is glad,
and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
Hope helps us be stronger, holding onto our faith, and
believing in Him enough that the hope within that belief will give us courage
and strength. This next verse shares this exact sentiment, and also is one of
my many favorite verses for those tougher times in this world in our individual
and collective lives.
Psalm 31:24 KJV – Be of good courage, and he
shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
Now we have to reflect on what it means to be hopeful. It
means we have the ability to receive many of the greatest gifts of the Spirit,
mercy, is just one of them as shared here.
Psalm 33:22 KJV – Let thy mercy, O Lord, be
upon us, according as we hope in thee.
It’s no easy thing to just let go and let God and Jesus
through the Spirit take the proverbial wheel in the vehicle known as life. I
know this in an up front and personal fashion, as several of our members,
friends, family members could chime in with their similar situations in
fighting to keep hope alive. It is not easy to just hope and pray without
worrying about our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues, neighbors, and all
the rest of those suffering something here in this world. These next two verses
in Psalms share this need for all of us to remember, if we give it to God,
don’t start a tug-of-war with Him and try to take it back. All you do is hurt
yourself in the long run. God hears, everyone, all the time, we just have to
believe in that hope that God is there, anywhere, whenever He is needed or even
just as background support when we can achieve things on our own.
Psalm 38:15 KJV – For in thee, O Lord, do I
hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God.
Psalm 146:5 KJV – Happy is he that hath the
God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:
Now we’ll move away from the Old Testament, regardless
that there are many, many verses on hope through Scripture, 103 verses,
specifically. A lot of those would be found in one of the most difficult
Scrolls in Scripture to pursue with study and understanding because of all the
despair to be found. That would be in the Scroll of Job. As our very own Elder
Cal Jennings once said, Job is a tough character, but what he goes through is
progressively tough on any psyche, beyond Job in the midst of his pains,
sorrows, and losses through the time he suffered. Yet, even in all of that,
like we should be, he continued to believe in the hope God provides us all
through the Spirit. We now share how this was taught to the Greeks and Romans
through Paul and the other Apostles. We’ll choose this verse, which definitely
shows something significant for Christians of the time.
Acts 2:26 KJV – Therefore did my heart
rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
No matter what Paul and the Apostles were suffering in
the teaching of God’s Unconditional Love, and the methods that Jesus Christ,
the Savior used through His short time on earth, they had to believe more than
they could ever express, to suffer from all the things they were tormented by
in their lifetimes, living in hiding in many places because Christianity in its
infancy had many, many hurdles to overcome to become what it has in the two
millennia since that time.
Romans 5:1-7 KJV – Therefore being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
We all face tests in our lives. Tests of strength, faith,
patience, all of those and more. Hope is the experience when, even in the face
of adversity and chaos, we can still believe, have faith, and understand when
we have to reach out and help, or let it be. Doing so brings hope forward, and
sorrow, pain, and fear can drop away from our minds and allow that gorgeous, amazing,
freeing sweep of the Holy Spirit as our faith allows the hope that does exist
to grow stronger and stronger within us. Now that’s something to think about as
we pray in the prayer that Jesus taught us saying:
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)
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)
Closing Song: Phil Wickham ~ Living Hope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f2FXxDVO6w
~ Shalom ~
Rev. Laura A. Neff
Elder Calvin Jennings
Covenant of Hope Ministries Main Site: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
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 © 2020 http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
Our mission for Covenant of Hope Ministries is not to
exploit fear, but to conquer it, and overcome all that is created through fear
together as the bringers of the light of Jesus found in the midst of darkness.
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