My 10 prayers for today
1. Put People First March in London. We can't attend but our Hayley will be there.
2. The 150+ people who attended a funeral we conducted this week, many of whom do not know Jesus. The deceased was not a believer. It was a challenge to offer both comfort and the truth. I pray that someone will have been stirred up to think about eternal matters.
3. Jon who volunteered to pray at Quest group.
4. For the Corps outreach at Coffee morning and High St War Cry sales.
5. Our meetings tomorrow. am 1 John 4-5 Moving in the power of God and pm The prayer of
Jesus John 17
6. For an officer colleague who is ill.
7. Prostitutes in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire and prisoners in Ethiopia.
8. Revival in the Salvation Army.
9. Alan's unsaved family.
10. The town of Portishead.
O God Maker of the earth and heaven
Given to a world in need
Act now in Your power to deliver
O Lord God hear our prayers.
Father look upon your troubled children
Save them in their darkest hour
Strengthen them to speak Your name with courage
O Lord God hear our prayers
Oh make known to all that you are mighty to save
Lord how long must they wait?
Guard them when they suffer persecution
Grant them the grace to stand
Faithful unto their testimony
O Lord God hear our prayers
(Keith Getty and Jason Mandryk copyright 2002 Kingsway's Thankyou Music/MCPS)
God bless
Carol
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Thursday, 26 March 2009
An upside down world.
As a teenager I remember listening to the testimony of former witch Doreen Irvine. One thing that has stuck in my mind was that she said her involvement in the occult brought her to a place where she had a completely inverted idea of what was evil and what was good. The way that she viewed the world was upside down. Evil was good and good was evil.
Doreen was heavily into extreme occult practices but I am increasingly concerned that more and more ordinary people are being persuaded that into an inverted view of what is good and what is evil.
This morning I listened to a news report about the results of a survey which showed that some psychologists still tried to help people with homosexual tendencies to overcome them. The "so called" expert response to this was shock and horror. The man I heard being interviewed said he thought such a practice was immoral.
I am not convinced that someone can be counselled out of homosexuality, nor am I unaware that there are many complex issues around this subject but I know people who have been set free from homosexuality, through the power of Christ and have moved into happy and stable heterosexual marriages.
It seems that it is not now the person who helps a terminally ill person to commit suicide who is deemed immoral but the person who continues to call such a practice murder.
On the day that it has been announced in the UK that abortion groups will be allowed to advertise on TV it is often those who call for abstinance from pre-marital sex that are deemed the bad guys. A pastor I know was told by a local doctor that his church was responsible for the teenage pregnancy of one of their young people because they had unrealistically taught that it was wrong for 14 year olds to have sex. He was told they youth team should have been advising instead about contraception.
John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said, "There is plenty of evidence to show that the more you promote easy access to birth control among young people, the higher the pregnancy rate, the higher the abortion rate."
The world does not need turning upside down. It needs to be turned the right way up.
God bless
Carol
As a teenager I remember listening to the testimony of former witch Doreen Irvine. One thing that has stuck in my mind was that she said her involvement in the occult brought her to a place where she had a completely inverted idea of what was evil and what was good. The way that she viewed the world was upside down. Evil was good and good was evil.
Doreen was heavily into extreme occult practices but I am increasingly concerned that more and more ordinary people are being persuaded that into an inverted view of what is good and what is evil.
This morning I listened to a news report about the results of a survey which showed that some psychologists still tried to help people with homosexual tendencies to overcome them. The "so called" expert response to this was shock and horror. The man I heard being interviewed said he thought such a practice was immoral.
I am not convinced that someone can be counselled out of homosexuality, nor am I unaware that there are many complex issues around this subject but I know people who have been set free from homosexuality, through the power of Christ and have moved into happy and stable heterosexual marriages.
It seems that it is not now the person who helps a terminally ill person to commit suicide who is deemed immoral but the person who continues to call such a practice murder.
On the day that it has been announced in the UK that abortion groups will be allowed to advertise on TV it is often those who call for abstinance from pre-marital sex that are deemed the bad guys. A pastor I know was told by a local doctor that his church was responsible for the teenage pregnancy of one of their young people because they had unrealistically taught that it was wrong for 14 year olds to have sex. He was told they youth team should have been advising instead about contraception.
John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said, "There is plenty of evidence to show that the more you promote easy access to birth control among young people, the higher the pregnancy rate, the higher the abortion rate."
The world does not need turning upside down. It needs to be turned the right way up.
God bless
Carol
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Holiness and Prayer
Our Day of prayer and our Holiness Week-end have come and gone. There were many blessings and we thank God for his presence and his power in our midst. It is however easy in our action packed lives to move quickly on to the next thing. It's March, we've done Commitment Sunday, we've done Self Denial, a Family Service, we've done a Sunday morning series on the Ten Commandments and now we've done prayer and holiness. We push on to Easter.
It is right that at different times of the year we focus on different things. I believe that there are seasons spiritually just as there are in nature. However we need to be careful that we don't compartmentalise our lives. The reality is that as disciples of Jesus, our commitment, our giving, our mission, our service, our study of the word are every day things done in the context of holiness and prayer. We can't do holiness and prayer for a week-end and move on.
Without them everything we do becomes simply performance and dead religion.
Hence I'm giving notice that holiness and prayer are still on the agenda for Pill Corps for the unforseeable future.
Do I hear an amen anywhere?
God bless
Carol
Our Day of prayer and our Holiness Week-end have come and gone. There were many blessings and we thank God for his presence and his power in our midst. It is however easy in our action packed lives to move quickly on to the next thing. It's March, we've done Commitment Sunday, we've done Self Denial, a Family Service, we've done a Sunday morning series on the Ten Commandments and now we've done prayer and holiness. We push on to Easter.
It is right that at different times of the year we focus on different things. I believe that there are seasons spiritually just as there are in nature. However we need to be careful that we don't compartmentalise our lives. The reality is that as disciples of Jesus, our commitment, our giving, our mission, our service, our study of the word are every day things done in the context of holiness and prayer. We can't do holiness and prayer for a week-end and move on.
Without them everything we do becomes simply performance and dead religion.
Hence I'm giving notice that holiness and prayer are still on the agenda for Pill Corps for the unforseeable future.
Do I hear an amen anywhere?
God bless
Carol
Friday, 6 March 2009
The Inner Life by Mrs Bramwell Booth
"Take heed concerning the secret inner life- in this lies the only surety against heart breaking personal failure. Strive for a strengthening and deepening of your spiritual life. There could be no outward manifestation of life in speech, sight, movement but for the hidden activity of beating heart, breathing lungs, guiding brain. Prayer links our life to him the giver of all life.
How about the hidden life in you, this prayer behind shut doors? What are you saying to yourself about it now? Have you confidence before God? Have you constant access to him in prayer? There is to be that in your experience which is between you and God only. Oh, if you are confessing yourself a weakling in prayer, have faith that the Holy Spirit will help you pray; (Romans 8:26)
We cannot live to please God without secret prayer; no indeed we cannot: and so the Devil will induce us to wear the cloak of religion whilst living and working without communion with God. He is securely binding some of our people with the chains of prayerlessness, enticing them to be content with empty service and to allow the hidden, secret life to starve and die, that he may brand them for himself. How satisfied he will be if he succeeds in inclining you to let your outward service in the Army swallow up the life of your soul ! Be on the watch for this snare. Guard against allowing that which is good in itself to take the place of this all important duty of secret prayer.
If you pray you cease to sin; if you sin you cease to pray"
God bless
Carol
"Take heed concerning the secret inner life- in this lies the only surety against heart breaking personal failure. Strive for a strengthening and deepening of your spiritual life. There could be no outward manifestation of life in speech, sight, movement but for the hidden activity of beating heart, breathing lungs, guiding brain. Prayer links our life to him the giver of all life.
How about the hidden life in you, this prayer behind shut doors? What are you saying to yourself about it now? Have you confidence before God? Have you constant access to him in prayer? There is to be that in your experience which is between you and God only. Oh, if you are confessing yourself a weakling in prayer, have faith that the Holy Spirit will help you pray; (Romans 8:26)
We cannot live to please God without secret prayer; no indeed we cannot: and so the Devil will induce us to wear the cloak of religion whilst living and working without communion with God. He is securely binding some of our people with the chains of prayerlessness, enticing them to be content with empty service and to allow the hidden, secret life to starve and die, that he may brand them for himself. How satisfied he will be if he succeeds in inclining you to let your outward service in the Army swallow up the life of your soul ! Be on the watch for this snare. Guard against allowing that which is good in itself to take the place of this all important duty of secret prayer.
If you pray you cease to sin; if you sin you cease to pray"
God bless
Carol
Thursday, 5 March 2009
The connection of prayer to mission and holiness according to Mrs Bramwell Booth
The following is taken from Powers of Salvation Army Officers by Mrs Bramwell Booth.
"No matter how much we may labour, our toil will be unblessed by God if it is not hallowed by prayer; but when we express our desires and hopes to him in secret he delights to reward us openly. Those whose yearning for the salvation of souls moves them to plead with God that souls shall be saved, shall have the open reward. He has promised!
Those who hunger after holiness of character, desiring to have the witness that all their ways please God, let them but commune with him and they will have their sure reward in power to live the holy life; power to be meek and humble; power to keep their temper; power to be the sort of person whom others will find sympathetic and kind, witholding the hasty answer. Their reward will be seen most markedly in their holiness, their likeness to the character of God in a glorious overcoming of temptation. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. (Col 3:1)"
God bless
Carol
The following is taken from Powers of Salvation Army Officers by Mrs Bramwell Booth.
"No matter how much we may labour, our toil will be unblessed by God if it is not hallowed by prayer; but when we express our desires and hopes to him in secret he delights to reward us openly. Those whose yearning for the salvation of souls moves them to plead with God that souls shall be saved, shall have the open reward. He has promised!
Those who hunger after holiness of character, desiring to have the witness that all their ways please God, let them but commune with him and they will have their sure reward in power to live the holy life; power to be meek and humble; power to keep their temper; power to be the sort of person whom others will find sympathetic and kind, witholding the hasty answer. Their reward will be seen most markedly in their holiness, their likeness to the character of God in a glorious overcoming of temptation. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. (Col 3:1)"
God bless
Carol
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