Good
afternoon, welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries. My name is Elder Cal
Jennings. We are normally posted on Sundays for sermons and Wednesdays 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 with cancer.
Hospice care is in her home with her family. Keep them all in your thoughts and
prayers.
- Please
pray for a friend of ours, Lucy, whose liver is failing. She is going to be on
medication but may need a transplant. Pray that the first option works and she
returns to health.
- Please
bring Elder Cal Jennings into your prayers for his health, strength, and faith.
He has had some very bad health issues in the past year and answers are difficult
to find. His spirits have been very low. Pray that some good things going on
will bring those spirits back up once more.
- Pray for
a friend of my brother’s, who is far from home right now. There have been many
problems for her right now. It is our hope that she will return and be here to
complete her healing and more.
- Pray for
our members Theresa and Wayne who had a very rough year last year. Pray that
answers are provided in the world of finances and more. May some of their
trials and tribulations end in time for our celebration of the birth of Jesus.
- Pray for those
near and far who have been suffering in battles that do not have to be. Pray
that peace can be found amidst the fear and anger, frustration and more. May
hope blossom and bring that peace once more.
- Pray for
our friends and our enemies, may they all find that the gift of God’s Son,
Jesus, holds the hope and faith everyone seeks.
- Keep hope
alive in your prayers no matter the pain or strife we might suffer.
- May God
bless every one of us as we continue on.
Prayer: Father in heaven, we
thank You for the gifts received this day and for these who are here to share
with us. We thank You for the blessings brought and for those yet to come. We
pray that You can remind us always what we should be looking forward to. We bring
prayers for those who have been seriously ill. Help those who are working to
fight serious illnesses the ability to find solutions. We pray for those lost
and those who mourn. We pray for those who are traveling home this weekend that
they may have a safe journey. 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.
Opening Song: What Faith Can Do ~
Kutless https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiBNkZHOBI8&index=153&list=PL614A115BF39E5936
Sermon: Good afternoon. The inspiration this week came with
several events over the past few days. Those events have proven that NOTHING IS
IMPOSSIBLE with God in our lives, hearts, spirits, and souls. Sharing this gift
of faith and love we look here at the following verses.
Isaiah
14:24-27 KJV – The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought,
so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
Isaiah
14:24-27 NIV – The Lord Almighty has sworn,
Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
This is the plan determined for the whole world;
this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
This is the plan determined for the whole world;
this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
Surely as I have planned, so it will be. These are
some words that I needed to hear myself. God made it evident to me on Tuesday
that He meant it. I won’t go into details, but I was starting to think that for
all the times I had prayed to be sure that something was right, and God seemed
to be telling me yes, it was right, and even sent me some threats as dreams if
I went back on it, that God had let me down. Everything seemed dark and dingy.
I became depressed. I didn’t quite lose faith, but I was certainly confused
because I didn’t know what was wrong. I didn’t have all of the details. When I
got the details, I was quite ashamed of my doubt.
No matter how strong your faith in Christ is, there
are going to be times when we will doubt. Satan tries to throw us curves and
make us wonder if we’re making the right choices. Sometimes what God says is
the right choice seems nearly impossible to achieve, but if God says that it’s
the right thing, then we must trust Him that He’ll make a way. Here again is
just one verse from the Scripture selection.
Isaiah 14:25
NIV – I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
There have been times when I’ve been up against the
wall, homeless, thrown in jail for a short period on false charges, and many
other things, but God has seen me through each one and made a way for me to
walk through it without harm. At times it seemed that there was nothing that
could make things better, but just when I had completely given up hope, God
turned things around. I even spoke truth to politicians…my big crime…so they
set me up. They couldn’t hold me for long, since I hadn’t done anything wrong,
but they refused me a phone call and refused me a lawyer. After about a week, I
prayed to God and asked him what to do, and He told me. A few days later, they
sent me to court. I pleaded Nolo Contendere to the charges, and they let me go.
I could have tried to represent myself, but I knew that I didn’t really have
any chance against a lawyer, so God put the idea of Agnew pleading Nolo
Contendere in my head, and that’s what I did.
Luke 21:15 NIV
– For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your
adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
Again from Isaiah:
14:27 NIV – For the
Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is
stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
If you have God on your side, not even the powers that be can hold you.
When you’ve been doing nothing but God’s work and you’re being held and
persecuted for something you didn’t do, God can get you through it. If you have
untold barriers between you and what God says that He has for you, those
barriers will fall. It may seem to take more time than we think it should,
knowing that it has already been promised, but God is true, and faithful to His
word.
In my particular situation there are financial barriers, distance
barrios, minor cultural barriers, and other things to overcome, but they will
be overcome.
Sometimes the hardest thing for us to do is to be patient when we can
almost taste something. We can see it, we can hear it, and we can almost feel
it, but by all appearances, they’re just out of our reach. Having lived my
life, I know that there ARE no barriers. The barriers are just something in our
minds. Something that society has told us to believe. Maybe it’s even something
our parents told us to believe. If God wants it to happen, it’s going to
happen. You can count on that.
Closing Song: Nothing Is Impossible ~ The Church Choir of The
Houston First Baptist Church http://youtu.be/hnrCOSXVrSM
Now let us pray the prayer that Jesus taught us when He said...
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)
~Love,
Hope, Peace, and Christ be with you ~
Elder Cal
Jennings
Covenant of Hope Ministries
Main Site:
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 © 2015
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 Rev. Laura would have a seriously traumatic thing happen in her life
she would wake in the middle of the night. When she does she sees a rainbow at
the end of the bed, or even through the window behind her head. She has even
seen that rainbow in a dark room during the day. It will hover in the shadows
and reassure her that God is with her.