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Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our sermon or midweek study. You will normally see us posted on Sunday. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. Our ministry was built on the truth of God’s love. It doesn’t conform to society’s wishes. This ministry shares the Word of God, the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Those who know me well will recognize that there are definitive differences in the creation of every sermon from this point forward. It is God’s will that has brought this to be. We wish only that God’s truth will be shared within His words as brought to us by the Spirit as it fills my heart, mind, and soul to be shared with my hands, but with His words alone.
You will find us in the following location: http://www.covenantofhopeministries.blogspot.com
Rev. Laura’s other sites: Facebook & Blogspot & Twitter
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.
- Please continue to pray for Elder Cal Jennings and his health issues, which are numerous. He has been having issues with his pain, vision, and memory.
- Please pray for two very special people in my life as they explore life together as more than friends.
- We pray for the ones who suffered devastation in the hurricanes and tropical storms attacking our gulf coast this past week.
- We are ever watchful in regard to the weather, the unrest, and the virus and response to that virus. Let us pray for calm skies and seas, calm voices and spirits, and also healthy outcomes for those who are affected.
- We pray that the upcoming school year is filled with progress for our children who are attending and for the teachers and staff that must adapt to what is considered the “new normal” around this world.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.
- Pray for our outreach ministries with Pastor Stephen Okoth, Pastor Simon Peter Javaji, and all the others who have joined us.
- 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.
- Pray for all those who lost their lives in this world from illness, violence, or devastation of one form or another.
- Pray for those fighting the wildfires and for those who have lost so much in those same wildfires.
- Pray that truth is revealed where falsehoods have been shared around this world.
Prayer: Father in heaven, this is our prayer for today. We bring our sick and wounded up in prayer, including Elder Cal Jennings. We pray for answers to mysteries for health issues and money issues with several members and family members. We pray for our poor and desolate, our brothers and sisters who have been brought utter devastation due to the many terrors around this world, riots, armed gunmen, and all of the natural disasters, storms, and so forth this past week. We pray for those in our outreach ministries that their reach gains momentum and their needs are met. 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: Kutless ~ King of My Heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jkMnq2Hfzo
Sermon: We are still working through Chapter 3 in Ephesians. Paul was traveling through the entirety of the city of Ephesus teaching as Jesus taught him years before. It is important to remember that we are all teachers for a reason, and that sometimes we must repeat ourselves in order to keep the lessons learned in our hearts for a simple reason. That reason is that once you are taught something, one day you’ll have to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. This is what Jesus wants us to manage. This week I was asked a question as to how we should approach our faith and our journey with God and Jesus. Treat it this way. There is always something new to learn. That’s what this verse shares.
Ephesians 3:8 KJV – Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
Jesus wants us to be teachers and learners at the same time. That’s not always an easy thing to manage. Every situation we get through individually or collectively is a learning experience. Yet, it isn’t the same experience for every person involved at the same time. When we go into foreign territory, we draw on our experience from before to attempt to navigate the new experience and learn as much as possible. Yet, because we have that prior instance of learning and wisdom, it makes learning something new easier and that helps us keep calm, cool, and collected through anything new. We see that here in this supporting verse.
Colossians 2:2 KJV –That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
Remember, Jesus said we should absorb and learn things as a child. However, as adults, we should act the part of adults, but not forget the wisdom that youth can sometimes hold when it comes to faith and understanding of God’s lessons brought to us through life. We don’t want to be bickering, petty, insolent five year olds in action when we are facing something new as adults in this ever-changing world which we live in. No matter the fact that everywhere we look in this world there are those who are acting as such.
1 Corinthians 14:20 KJV –Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
There is something special about knowing God’s truth. This is something worth more than anything in this world. Not monetarily, but spiritually, subconsciously, morally. The mystery of God’s truth is something Jesus gave us more ability to see, when He gave up the ghost and the veil between God and mankind was ripped to shreds at long last. This next supporting verse shares that consideration.
Colossians 1:27 KJV – To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Now, as we get back to Paul and his teaching in Ephesus,
we see something that Jesus shared with the twelve Apostles quite often.
Remember, there is a fine line that gets erased away when the teacher and the
student reach the point where they are equal. That point is shared here.
Ephesians 3:9 KJV – And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the
mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ:
A verse that ties directly to this and the next supporting verses isn’t shared when you read the Scriptures and learn the connecting verses. This is one of the single most important verses that we, as true Christians, should always be willing to share with each other and those we meet each week.
John 15:12-14 KJV – This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Jesus wants us to learn what it is to be a brother or sister in His name. God wants the same for a single reason. Once we do learn this with every person, we will no longer be strangers, enemies, a distant tree limb on our family tree. We will be much more than that. We will be friends of God, as Abraham was. Moses, David, Solomon, and all the others who were very close with God. Let’s see what Timothy’s take on the gift Jesus brought us would be.
1 Timothy 3:16 KJV – And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Now, some people ask on occasion what is the difference between the Twelve Apostles and the Gentiles? This is explained far back in Scripture. God insisted that the Jews and Gentiles were to always be separate because the Jews were circumcised in God’s faith and the Gentiles, at the time, were not. Jesus took that separation away with His resurrection. That’s why we all are, as true Christians, brothers, and sisters in Christ, even though so many of us are “Gentiles” transformed to Christians, following the path of Christ. James, younger brother of Jesus, shares the importance of our faith and keeping it securely in our hearts, minds, and spirits.
James 1:6 KJV – 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.
Many times, we have explored the words James shares in his epistle. His point of view, as a younger biological sibling to the Savior of all mankind brings something more urgent to the Scripture warning us that if we forget the truth of Jesus, we can forget God is with us always and everywhere. This refers back to another verse where David shares what God has been for him in his life.
Psalm 33:6 KJV – By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
God is our everything. Jesus, as the Son of God and the Savior of all, is our everything. That’s why the Holy Spirit brings us together as one, no matter how far apart we might be on this earth. The strength of the Holy Spirit is unbreakable, even if we forget that in the everyday events of our lives. This is what John the Beloved and Paul shared here in these three final verses.
John 1:3 KJV – All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Colossians 1:16 KJV – For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Hebrews 1:2 KJV – Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
The Holy Trinity – Father – Son – Holy Spirit are one and the same. They are separate but together as one and represent three parts of the same whole, the Creator, the Savior, and the Comforter, all in one. In the world today with all the chaos, all the pain, sorrow, torment and more, we all need that heavenly embrace of friendship, faith, and unconditional love. 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)
Closing Song: Chris McClarney ~ I’m Listening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef52AmdVwYI
~ 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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