Pray for a Day

It's Pray for a Day at Pill Corps again. Once again we have had dozens of requests for prayer, which we will bring before the Lord throughout the day.

In addition we will be praying for a list of things for our own Corps and each seeking God for his anointing and power.

Then on Saturday, it starts all over again as Lori Richards and I are responsible for setting up the prayer rooms for the Territorial Congress and will be spending most of the week-end providing prayer cover for the meetings and praying for the UKT

That's brilliant as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of many other better ways to spend a week-end.

Let's believe that God will mightily bless the Salvation Army in the UK and do much more than we can ask or imagine!

God bless

Carol

Jonathan and his armour bearer

Do you ever get the feeling that God might be asking you to look again at a particular part of his word?

Just over a week ago at Prayer School, part or our study was to look at prayer roles, one of which was armour bearer and the story used as an example was 1 Samuel 14:6-15.

Yesterday at the Remembrance Service, our local Baptist minister chose the same reading for his sermon. This morning, whilst eating my breakfast I browsed through TV channels onto one of the God channels, which was showing a preacher at the New Frontiers Conference in Brighton. He was preaching on 1 Samuel 14:6-15!!

Anyway Pill Corps, be on the alert I get the sense that this a word for us to chew over on Friday at the Prayer Day.

God bless

Carol

Results of anointing by the Holy Spirit

"There are four great results that follow the anointing, four evidences that can neither be disputed or counterfeited:

- victory over sin

- power in service

- the fruit of the Spirit

- a burden for souls."

(Oswald J. Smith The Enduement of power)

God bless

Carol

From the cradle to.............

Tomorrow I have an interesting day. It starts off in the morning with our Toddler Group, which consists of mostly unchurched parents and their children coming for a morning of activity and chat.
Following this, Alan and I will be off up to the Secondary School for the lunch-time games club. We usually attract between 6-10 kids, some of whom are particularly vulnerable. It is a bolt hole, a place where they are offered a listening ear and where they can build up their confidence.

Then it's off to one of our soldier's houses to celebrate a "significant" birthday and having had our tea and cake we re-visit Smallcombe House to conduct a meeting with the elderly residents there as part of the Salvation Army Social Services Campaign Week.

The old slogan that the NHS provides for health needs from the cradle to the grave is also true of the gospel, except of course that it also provids for beyond the grave, for eternity. I think I am meeting with almost every age group tomorrow at some point or another.

In lots of ways tomorrow is not unusual. It's just another day in the life of an ordinary Corps but it could also be the day someone really hears the gospel for the first time, the day someone gets saved, someone returns to the Lord, someone gets filled with the Spirit. What an immense responsibility to make the most of every opportunity to share the free benefits of a gospel that can meet the needs of every unique individual I will meet tomorrow.

Thank God, he doesn't just pour out anointing for Sundays and Festivals but on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and .....................

God bless

Carol

Sanctification

I have just been over on http://www.armybarmy.com/index.html where sanctification is being discussed.

Whilst preparing for some teaching on Spiritual Growth I was led to the life of Samuel, which seemed to me to compare to the link between sanctification and growing in grace.

Samuel was born to Hannah through the grace of God, just as we have been born again spiritually through his grace.
Hannah had made a promise that if she could have a baby she would give him over to God totally for his service. It was a promise she made but she held on to the baby for a while but there came a moment when she knew she must in all conscience completely surrender him to God and take him to the temple. It was to be part of Samuel’s development, as he grew and was weaned but it involved a crisis, a moment of surrender so that Samuel was in the right place to grow as God wanted him to. Samuel was not just born of God, he was promised to God, but there was a moment when he was actually wholly set apart for God. In Christian life many promise God their total commitment, they even intend that it should be so but human ties can hold us back just as they could have Samuel, if Hannah had not let him go. However one day Hannah actually took her son and left him at the temple. He may have gone with her many times before to visit but this was different. On this day she once and for all relinquished her rights over her child and entrusted him to the priest. In the story of Samuel, it is Hannah who has to make the surrender as Samuel had no say in the matter. In our lives it is we ourselves who are called upon to relinquish the right to run our own lives and entrust them entirely to God.
The debate about who is in charge of our life is over. For Samuel it was no longer Hannah and Elkannah but Eli the Priest. For us it is no longer the world or self but Christ. Now that is settled it is time to concentrate on growing in this new life. It is our priority.
Samuel now lived at the temple but he didn’t stay two years old. Each year his mother brought him new clothes because he grew. He grew not only physically but emotionally and spiritually too. This did not mean he was immune from temptation. For Samuel even though he was in the place God wanted him to be, there was still a battle to fight as the influence of the world infiltrated the temple through Eli's sons. Samuel however, because he kept listening to God, was able to stay pure.

This experience of total surrender, continual growth and constant overcoming can be ours.

"We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

God bless

Carol

Higgins on Promises and Faithfulness

"It has been said that we make too many promises in the Salvation Army. To which I reply: No, not one too many! The more promises we enter into with God, the better will it be for us all. Such promises are a great strength in hours of temptation. They become bulwarks to protect us from both the assaults of the Evil One and those which arise within ourselves."

Higgins cites the following things to which he believes the Salvationist should be faithful

1. To Army principles

Our methods may change because times alter and conditions become different but our principles remain the same for ever. What is truth today will be truth in a hundred years to come. What is pure today will be pure then.

2. To anti-worldliness

Worldliness is not seen in the choise of our attire only it manifests itself in a thousand and one ways. Everything that is contrary to the spirit and purpose and character of Jesus Christ we must resist with all our might.

3. To fighting for the Salvation of the world

I am afraid the idea has sometimes got abroad that Officers are intended to be like parsons and preach sermons whole the people they are supposed to lead in fighting do nothing. What sort of military warfare would that be in which the fighting was left entirely to the officers, the very persons who are on the spot to lead their soldiers in fighting?

4. To the penitent form

We must be true to the principles of demanding from sinners a public acknowledgement of their need of salvation and urging them to come out and declare before all men their determination to give up sin and serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

5. To the government of the Army

That government has proved itself to be strong and effective by securing and developing great forces of thousands of men and women who are willing to be directed by those place in authority over them.

6. To the Gospel

I urge you to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In your hands are to a great extent the eternal destinies of men and women.

7. To our duties

Bear in mind that the Army has given us opportunities we should never have had elsewhere. It has place us on a platform where we can influence men and women for God. Surely then it has a claim upon our service and devotion which must take first place. If we are going to have satisfaction at the end of life's journey, we must so live that we shall be ab le to look back with full assurance that all our duty has been faithfully performed.

Is he right?

What do you think?

More tomorrow

God bless

Carol

Storm Pilot

Whilst at Officers Councils a few days ago I bought the book 1929 by John Larsson. What a fascinating read. I have been in the Army all my life and although I had of course heard about how Bramwell Booth had been removed from office I had no idea of the intrigue or the drama involved.

One of the central figures during this whole episode of SA history is Edward Higgins, a person I knew nothing about, before I read this book and was known as the Storm- Pilot. He comes across in the book as a man of integrity and wisdom. On returning home I have fished out a book by him that I have never read called Stewards of God, which is a collection of papers specially compiled for the help and guidance of Corps Officers of the Salvation Army.

So I will include some gems of wisdom from the Storm Pilot over the next few blogs, which I think are good advice for all Christians, not just officers.

Higgins on Opportunity

"Our opportunities like time itself are forever on the wing and unless we are alert to the fact we shall become conscious of most of them only when they are gone forever. Therefore look out for them! Try to meet them! Strive for them!

All opportunities are not alike, nor are all equally productive. Yet all Salvation Army officers have many wonderful opportunities presented to them. The important thing is to cultivate that clearness of vision which will enable you to see them. What is seen by some officers as a great opporutnity appears as nothing to others whose perspective is wrong.

Somebody has said, "Failure is blindness to the strategic element in time; success depends upon readiness and instant action hwen the opportune moment arrives." James Watt was not the first man who had seen steam lift the lid of a kettle but he was the first to see the possibilities latent in the fact and to allow his mind to develop the idea until he evolved an engine which improved upon later by George Stephenson was the beginning of transportation by the power of steam. When we realise that we are stewards of every opportunity placed in our hands and for which we shall be held eternally responsible we shall look on this matter with more serious eyes."

More tomorrow

God bless

Carol