Holiness and Prayer Week-end

Despite having to change a few plans due to circumstances beyond our control, our Holiness and Prayer week-end went ahead. Our guest Andrew Bale was unable to come on Friday evening so it was down to Alan and I to lead and preach. We felt strongly that we should keep to the planned theme, All you need is love and we used 1 John 4:7 as a base text.

We began by saying that our starting point should not be "How much do I love God?" but "How much does God love us?"

"This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." Love has been poured out.

It is only when we understand that we are his beloved, see how his love is demonstrated at the cross and recieve it that we have any hope of being truly loving people. The promise of the word of God is that not only are we loved and given an example of love but also that we can receive that same love within us, through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5 "And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts. Love has been poured in. The love received from God will always be more than we can contain so it will then become love that is poured out through us.

We were unable to pray the whole night as planned but we did pray until midnight. During our time together we shared our particular "heart cry" prayers with each other. The promise that God gave us through verses given to different people was that our righteousness will shine like the dawn.
Psalm 37:6
Isaiah 60:3
Isaiah 62:1

A big sigh of relief when we got news that Andrew was able to come for the Sunday. We had a blessed day when the Lord continued to affirm all that he had been saying and also giving us fresh bread to feed upon. For an outline of Andrews teaching you can go to his blog, http://www.beyondthebrook.blogspot.com

We would fully reccommend combining strong holiness teaching with prayer meetings. Prayer prepares the heart to receive the word of God and then the word of God informs the prayer. The results are stronger and bolder saints.

God bless

Carol