Welcome to Covenant of Hope Ministries and our Sunday sermon. You will normally see us posted every Sunday. I am Rev. Laura A. Neff. This ministry shares the Word of God, the Spirit of Christ Jesus. It is God’s will that has brought this ministry to where it is today. 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 Rev. Lisa Tyler’s sister, Mary, who has had lung issues and is in the hospital in an induced coma, but improving and thankfully it isn’t COVID-19 related. Please pray that the LORD heals her fully and brings her smile to her face once more.
- 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. Add to the prayers with a need for new housing as the family is in dire straits there at this point in time.
- 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.
- Continue to pray for several of my family members as they go through some dramatic changes in some cases.
- Be thankful for each day we live as we do not know what tomorrow brings.
- Pray for all of our outreach ministries with Pastor Stephen Okoth, Pastor Robert Nganwa, Pastor Simon Peter Javaji, Rev. Lisa Tyler, 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 very recent terrors here in the USA that have occurred just this past couple of weeks within the Asian community and others. There are still more terrors that have occurred around this world.
- Pray for our sick and wounded that they may heal.
- 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, Sister Lisa’s sister, and several friends of ours. We pray for answers to mysteries for health issues and money issues with several members and family members. We pray for the poor and desolate, our brothers and sisters who have been brought devastation due to the terrors around this world and all of the natural disasters, tornadoes, 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: I Will Fear No More https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBOpf-bArKs
Sermon: We are still working on discerning good and evil. Today we are working on the Scroll of Romans and Paul’s take on good and evil. I went and looked at the entire chapter before the Spirit chose the entire series of verses. What does it do when we ignore our own wrongdoings? Our own mistakes in this world? Well, that’s shown here in these verses and what we all should be watchful for in our own behavior to enable us the ability to stop doing those things and walk more fully on the path that Christ shares with us through the Word.
Romans 7:17-25 KJV – Now then it is no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to
will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve
the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Every human being, at some point in their life asks themselves a series of questions. One of those questions is asked in the above verses. “Am I a good person?” Paul asks this very rhetorical question, in a literal sense, wondering if his work on earth in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, would be perceived as living a godly, truly Christian life here on earth. We all have those days when we wonder, “why on earth am I still here if nobody understands what I am saying and sharing?” Everyone, at least once, asks this very question, whether in utter desperation or within the depths of despair.
We have to ask these kinds of questions, more frequently, because it will keep us at a point where we are seeking that pathway to eternal life and peace within that eternal life. This, not only for ourselves alone, or those who are immediately around us, but also for those who are not yet born into our lives as children, grandchildren, and so forth. Evil does everything it can manage to wear us down and drag us under the surface to keep us there and away from the breath of eternal life, and the light of eternal hope. As we are beginning the celebration of Passover and nearly to the point of Easter, these are our challenges just as Paul shares here.
Romans 9:11 KJV – (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
Our children, at birth, are pure, one hundred percent pure, without the knowledge of what good or evil would be. Like every other person who has lived on this earth, they too must learn what evil is, and how to discern it from good. It’s something many of us spend a lifetime to truly manage this well. The reason for that is in the fact that evil can disguise itself as literally anything and everything. Here we see the warning Paul shares.
Romans 12:9 KJV – Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Nothing, and no one, in this universe has a comparable to God’s Unconditional Love. We try our hardest to provide unconditional love, no matter what happens between men and women, mothers and fathers with their children. We all try to portray love in the way God gives us love, toward each other, and toward the generation that will follow us when our lives here on earth are over. The work we do in portraying the good and pushing away at the evil is shown to benefit every person, young and old as shown here.
Romans 12:21 KJV – Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Every Sunday we say a prayer which teaches us, through God, everything that is evil can be overcome. This prayer should be said, on our own or collectively, should be prayed always. That’s why we have God’s Prayer. One of our most powerful allies for good would be the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Our Father invokes that strength in the Holy Spirit, for each and every one of us. There is power, great power, in the blood Jesus shed for us. There is even greater power in the gift of unconditional love that our Savior Jesus managed two millennia and more in the past. That is the combined gift of shredding the veil and bestowing the Holy Spirit. That is as undeniable as it is unfathomable. Let’s see what Paul shares.
Romans 13:3-4 KJV – For rulers are not a
terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the
power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister
of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
It is obvious that Paul speaks of Jesus and the gift He brought us in the Holy Spirit. The sword that Jesus bears helps us collectively and individually fight against evil and win. It’s not something we can do alone. Some may believe that, but truthfully, in order to reach the light while shrouded in the darkness of evil is to BELIEVE that GOOD CAN WIN so long as JESUS and GOD are CONNECTED TO THAT FAITH in the HOLY SPIRIT. Every one of us has a mission to prove to others that our faith in Him would overcome all that is evil in this world.
Romans 14:16-19 KJV – Let
not then your good be evil spoken of:
For the kingdom of
God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost.
For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved
of men.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things
wherewith one may edify another.
Notice the last verse here, follow after the things which make for peace. Godly righteousness is all about love, peace, and joy, not war, fear, and hate, which we have seen far too much of in this world. There are so many things we have to work on to reach the ultimate in righteousness. Love one another, not as the world loves, but as Jesus loves each of us. Paul and the other eleven Apostles and the rest of the Disciples of Jesus all had their days where they gathered strength in God’s Word, because in His Word, there is love unconditionally and a method to wipe away all our fear and pain. We continue in that learning with this verse.
Romans 16:19 KJV – For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
What does it mean to be obedient to the Word? This isn’t a crash course to create automatons or people just blindly following without thinking about their life and the pursuit of unconditional love, joy, and peace. All of us have to work on the path we create in life. Today, there is a lot to breathe in, a lot to experience, as we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ as Easter is nearly here. Evil hides so often and so well, that we must learn to remember how to cut the taproot of evil and let God’s Unconditional Love prevail within us and around 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)
Closing Song: No Fear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLfLVEgkqDg
~ 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 © 2021 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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