Good afternoon, welcome to Covenant of Hope
Ministries. My name is Rev. Laura A. Neff, the Rainbow Minister. The choice for
Rainbow has to do with the fact that the rainbow symbolizes a promise made and
one that can and will be kept. I made, long ago, a promise to God that I would
do all I could to keep that faith within me. We are normally posted on Sunday for
sermons and Wednesday for studies. You can find these posted in the
following locations.
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.
- Please pray for a friend Susie
Bartholow as she is in hospice. She is in very grave condition and currently in hospice with advanced
cancer. Hospice care is at her home with her family. They all
need as much support in spirit as we can bring.
- Please keep family, friends, and colleagues of my husband’s in prayer. My husband’s co-worker was taken off life support earlier this week and has passed away. He was twenty-five.
- Pray that the tensions ease in the family. Pray also that the actions being worked out will assist in doing just that and more. Pray that tempers don’t flare and we don’t reach the breaking point.
- Pray for Elder Cal Jennings who is in ill health and a quandary regarding all that has been going on in this world.
- Please pray for another member, Theresa, who is having issues with all sorts of things, spiritual and physical, financial, and more.
- Keep other friends, families, and even those around us in society in our thoughts and prayers that they be safe, secure, and well.
- Please keep family, friends, and colleagues of my husband’s in prayer. My husband’s co-worker was taken off life support earlier this week and has passed away. He was twenty-five.
- Pray that the tensions ease in the family. Pray also that the actions being worked out will assist in doing just that and more. Pray that tempers don’t flare and we don’t reach the breaking point.
- Pray for Elder Cal Jennings who is in ill health and a quandary regarding all that has been going on in this world.
- Please pray for another member, Theresa, who is having issues with all sorts of things, spiritual and physical, financial, and more.
- Keep other friends, families, and even those around us in society in our thoughts and prayers that they be safe, secure, and well.
- Keep the ministry in your thoughts as
well, that we may continue on even in times that are bad.
- Continue prayers for my nephew that he
might continue healing as he has been doing well. Also as I have no further updates on my sister’s
brother-in-law keep him and the family in prayer as well.
- Brother Wayne is still trudging
through the processes of settling his father’s estate. Keep him and his family
in your prayers.
- Our families and friends who have been
in our hearts, keep them in your thoughts and prayers that they be safe, healthy, and let
them know they are always loved.
Opening Song: Faithful One – Robin Mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxviwvjyg1w&index=24&list=PLF46276A98B39ACFE
Prayer: Father in heaven, we now thank You for this day and for these who are
here to share it with us. We thank You for the blessings brought and for those
yet to come. We bring prayers for those who have been seriously ill. We pray
for those lost and those who mourn. We pray for patience and courage for those
we love and care about, and ourselves as well. We pray for peace to reach out
from the heart and be heard, felt, and understood. We pray that Your grace and
love would fill the hearts of the many in this world. We pray all this in Your
Holy Name through the Savior Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit,
Amen and so it shall be.
Sermon: Today I am bringing you a short passage, a very short sermon, and the Our Father. This week and those both prior and yet to come have been a test for many of us. Keeping patience is not an easy ideal. Yet this is what Jesus has taught us is worth fighting for, because with patience peace can be. It is challenges like these that we need to bring peace toward and His love as well.
James 1:2-8 KJV– My
brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this,
that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience
have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
If any of you
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask
in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea
driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that
man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
A double minded
man is unstable in all his ways.
It’s not easy to have patience, or
courage in the face of adversity, chaos, pain and sorrow. Every family has to
go through so much sometimes. It is when that family can pull each member back
up again, even after falling out, that’s when we fulfill what Jesus challenged
us with. He didn’t just challenge us to follow His path. He challenged us to
stay on that path, no matter what knocked us down. Currently many of us are struggling
to stand. Yet, we have the gift of God and His Son with the Spirit that has
been left within and without and roundabout.
With our current trials and tribulations, this brings hope to our hearts
and souls. Bring and hold our spirits close in Your Love and Grace. 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: Jesus Take The Wheel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydBPm2KRaU&index=37&list=PLF46276A98B39ACFE
~Shalom~
Covenant of Hope Ministries
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 © 2014 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.
This mission statement speaks of the rainbow in the
darkness. Every time I would have a seriously traumatic thing happen in my life
I would wake in the middle of the night. When I do I see a rainbow at the end
of my bed, or even through the window behind my head. I’ll see that rainbow in
a dark room even during the day. It will hover in the shadows and reassure me
that God is with me.
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