One Step Beyond

This is our good mate Gram Seen and One Step Beyond is a new book that tells the story of his journey from near death to new life. I first met Gram when I invited him to come and talk to a group of young offenders, whilst I was doing Prison Chaplaincy. The lads sat in the chapel and listened to him, open mouthed for an hour and a half! Since that first meeting I worked with Gram many times and his testimony of the miraculous way Jesus changed his life and continues to impact his life always had an effect on those who listened to him. He is a very precious brother in Christ

Read this book.

Read it if you are not a Christian and you want to know if Jesus can really change lives.

Read it if you are a Christian and you have stopped believing that God changes sinners into saints.

Read it if you are an evangelist and you need to understand what drives people to live the way Gram lived and how to reach them with the gospel.

Give this book or the DVD to people who don't know Jesus and to awaken Christians to believe again that God still performs miracles.

God bless

Carol

Hungry

We've just got back from a few days away in London, staying with Katie. Hayley also joined us, Katie's boyfriend Chris came over for a couple of evenings and we spend Sunday with Andrew and Tracy Bale at Dartford.

It was good to meet up and just be with family and friends but there is that special fellowship that exists between us all because of our shared love for Jesus and our passion for mission. We are loving our work in Pill. There are just not enough hours in the day to do all that is on our hearts. Katie and Chris are praying and exploring new ideas about how to reach out to the lost at the heart of the capital, through their service at Regent Hall corps. Hayley is excited about being part of the SA in Colchester and witnessing to her uni friends. Andrew and Tracy are living and breathing salvation and holiness in Dartford.

Whilst away I read a biography of George Whitefield, who spent a lot of time preaching and seeing thousands comes to faith in Bristol. The book is, of course full of tales of revival. It made me cry, it made me hungry and it's increased the intensity of my prayers.

Send a new touch of power Lord, to Regent Hall Corps, Colchester, Pill, Dartford and wherever you are.


God bless

Carol

New friends

I skipped Home League today and had another ladies meeting in a womens refuge in the city. Well actually it wasn't exactly a meeting, more of a getting to know you chat, by the open door, whilst they smoked their roll ups. The conversation about the week they had just spent wasn't quite the same as the conversation I might have had with the HL ladies!! One of my new friends had just got back from a new AA group and is celebrating because she hasn't had any alcohol for 5 weeks, another is kicking herself because she had just had a crazy binge on smack and another I heard is pregnant. All this, of course laced with colourful language and details that if my home league ladies were present would mean they wouldn't need to go and get their hair permed ever again! These are very needy women with very messy lives.

Somethings were just the same. I witnessed their acts of kindness to one another, we talked about our children and we talked about prayer.

And you know something else, our Home League ladies probably won't get to meet my new friends but I know that if I ask them they will pray for them. They are good like that.

God bless

Carol

And finally.........

And finally from A Paget Wilkes:

What I give God takes.
What he takes he cleanses
What he cleanses he fills
What he fills he seals.
What he seals he uses

God bless

Carol

Suffering with Christ.

I'm still reading A Paget Wilkes on Sanctification. I found his perspective on sharing the suffering of Christ really helpful and identify with it at present.

"You remember that Paul prayed that he might know the fellowship of Christ's suffering. I do not think that this refers to the past sufferings of Christ; it certainly does not mean emotional sentiment about the suffering of Christ on the Cross; he is certainly thinking of his present sufferings, his bitter disappointment as he looks on a poor, lukewarm, languishing church. O what disappointment and sorrow and suffering the Lord Jesus has over his people! O may we know something of that too in fellowship with him, that is the suffering I desire to enter into."

God bless

Carol

Make me usuable

My aunt is moving house and kindly allowed me to take whatever books from her shelf as she no longer has any room for so many. I picked a little book by A, Paget Wilkes on Sanctification.

Here is a little snippet.

He quotes Brengle, "As Brengle says, "Don't pray Lord use, but make me usable." and goes on to say, " Oh how we have longed for that inward purity that absence of jealousy, pride and every evil work. Till we are free we are not meet for his use. That is the reason why we need a clean heart. God can then take us up as he pleases. He can put us down as he pleases for he knows we shan't grumble or murmur but will still praise him because we are satisfied with the Lord Jesus himself rather than with our service for him."

God bless

Carol

Daily Bread

I am continuing with reading the Bible in One Year. Yesterdays reading from Proverbs was the passage that jumped out.

It's great advice, particularly for leaders.

"My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding and if you look for silver and search for it as hidden treasure then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find knowledge of God." Proverbs 2:1-5


The phrase, "if you call out for insight" is an instruction for me today as I seek to support and counsel people in my pastoral care. I owe it to them not to rely on my own experience but to get God's take on stuff. And "cry aloud for understanding" is helpful as I am trying to make sense of something that is happening to friends of mine.

v 10 and 11 give a conditional promise that I am claiming for today
"For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discrection will protect you and understanding will guard you."

God bless

Carol