"HIDE AND SEEK"
Thursday, August 6, 2015
By Rev. Margaret Aranda, MD, Ph.D.
Bible Scripture Written by Randy Smith:
John 7: 1 - 12
Closing Prayer & Song by Kirstie Whitehand
WELCOME! Our Lord said, “Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together.”
How are
the disabled supposed to ‘gather together’ if they can’t make it to a CAR, much
less a church or gathering?
What
about the lost and forgotten that are in Nursing Homes, like Mandigirl Here?
What
about the teens who have no car? This is for YOU!
Last
week, we studied verses in the Book of John that taught us how we must accept
the Son in order to go to the Father, as a “Two for One” Package Deal. Continuing with this theme, let us Praise the
Lord together:
OPENING SONGS
“I Come to Worship You”
By Danny
Netty
“How Great Thou Art”
By
Elevation Music
“Love Song”
By Third
Day
“Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”
By
MercyMe
“Your Love Oh Lord (Psalm 36)”
By Third
Day
We Worship You, Lord, and Come before You with our Requests. We
honor You as we keep You in our daily lives:
PRAYER
REQUEST:
First
and foremost in my soul is not just prayers for the African orphans of our
sister ministry with Pastor Steven Mwesigwa at Hope & Joy Ministries.
God will bless this ministry with gifts of money. It is up to
you, dear brothers and sisters, to turn around and give some of it back to the
church. Please pray that God trusts you to be blessed, so that you can in turn
be a blessing to others.
PRAYER
REQUEST:
Pastor
Steven Mwesigwa also asks for protection against “BISAKA OWOBUSOBOZI,” who
calls himself God and “channels people to his evil work.” It sounds like all
fear this man. When you pray morning and
night, agree with us together that his orphans have Angels protecting them
always. Amen.
PRAYER
REQUEST:
For
all our disabled and Chronically Ill FB friends, including: Kirstie Sweetie, Christian
Guy, Mandigirl Here, Helen Waltz, Tracy Norton, Bob Coleman-Long, Amy Cole,
Tamzin and her mother, and all those who suffer.
Help us to know that we are just on earth as in a “hotel” and
that our real home is in Heaven. Help us to bear our own Crosses, as Christ did
for us. Help us to die to ourselves and become alive to Christ. And finally,
help us to accept Christ and His healing, and then to go proclaim Your Love to
the world!
PRAYER
REQUEST:
We ask for special
blessings for those who are searching for a job, or a raise, or a better economic
position, including Heather K Guhl, who had her wages stolen.
PRAYER
REQUEST:
Please enter here if
you have any other prayer requests:
PRAISE
REPORTS: I praise you Lord, for allowing your Holy
Spirit to dwell within and amongst us. Let those who have ears to hear, listen
to the Word of God.
PREPARATION
FOR HOLY COMMUNION: Please gather your wine and bread for this, if you have
listened to my teaching videos on Holy Communion. Thank you.
SONG
OF REASSURANCE:
“Open
the Eyes of My Heart”
By Michael W.
Smith
SCRIPTURE: John 7:1-12
1 After
these things Jesus was walking in
Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.
2 Now the
feast of the Jews, the Feast of
Booths, was near.
3 Therefore
His brothers said to Him, “Leave
here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples
also may see Your works which You are doing.
4 For no
one does anything in secret when
he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do
these things, show Yourself to the world.”
5 For not
even His brothers were believing
in Him.
6 So Jesus
said to them, “My
time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune.
7 The
world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.
8 Go up to
the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”
9 Having
said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.
10 But
when His brothers had gone up to
the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret.
11 So the
Jews were seeking Him at the
feast and were saying, “Where is He?”
12 There
was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man;”
others were saying, “No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
DISCUSSION:
What
a nice group of brothers Christ had, that they wanted him to travel to Judea to
“make himself known” and get into the public eye. Do you think they were being
nice? Do you think they had Christ’s best interests in mind? Do you think
Christ was hiding from them?
It
is as if they said this tantalizingly, with glazed eyes for Christ to become a
‘Pop Star.’ It implies that their intentions were not good, as they insisted
more than once that He go to the Judea with them.
But
in return, Christ knew the intentions of their heart. He didn’t say, “I know
you just want me to get caught and killed.” No, he said the truth and yet was
still politically correct. He said, “My time is not yet here...” (Verses 1 -
6).
He
said the truth, but not the whole truth. Why?
To
prevent further problems that could lead to His untimely death. He knew this
could happen, and His own Words saved Himself.
This
is verified in Verse 7, where Christ says, “The world cannot hate
you”,...OK...
... “but it hates Me” ...OK...
....”because I testify of it”...OK...
... “that its
deeds are evil”.... Wow.
Again, He tells His brothers to go without Him (verse
7), and reiterates again that he will stay in Galilee (verse 8). He had no
intention of telling them that He was going to Judea, but He did do it
secretly, away from the public eye. So did Christ tell a lie? (verses 9-10).
And at this Feast of the Booths in Judea, men
were grumbling (again), arguing about whether he was a good man or whether He
led the people astray (verses 11 – 12).
We
see that Christ was His Own man. He walked a Spiritual walk. He could not be
ordered by his brothers as to whether or not He should go to Judea, or not. He
already knew that the public were grumbling against Him, seeking for His death.
Did
He lie to his brothers when He said he would stay in Galilee,
and yet He did secretly travel to Judea? We don’t know the intentions of His
heart at the moment that He was asked this question, so there is no way for us
to judge Him by reading His mind. Since He is God, I believe that He did not
tell a lie, but afterwards, thought about it a little more, and was led by God
to go ahead and make the trip secretly, since the time of His death was not
now. It would come up soon enough.
And Christ knew the Plan. Does Christ lead your
Plans?
“10,000 Reasons”
By Matt Redman
Stop song.
INVITATION AND RENEWAL PRAYER:
Do you want to accept Christ as your
personal Savior?
If
you have not yet said this prayer ALOUD to accept Jesus as your Lord and
Personal Savior, you can do so now: “Lord, I have not accepted You fully into
my heart, or I did once long ago, and have strayed. I ask that you forgive my
sins, enter my heart, and stay with me forevermore. I thank you that by grace
alone, and your death on the cross, I can enter Heaven to be together with
you.”
If
you have said this prayer in earnest, please stay after the service for Counsel
and make sure we get a Mentor for you, so that we can disciple you from a
‘baby’ Christian to a ‘fully-grown’ Christian who is then able to lead. We then
go out to all ends of the earth, spreading the Gospel or supporting those that
do so. Amen!
“Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”
By
ManathaSingers
Stop at
song’s end. Listen to Playlist later, my brothers and sisters in Christ.
PREPARATION FOR HOLY COMMUNION: Until I studied it myself, I did not realize how
seriously God judges us for taking Holy Communion. It is Holy.
We are not to take it if we
are sinning, or it is blasphemy against OURSELVES and the Lord. I encourage you
not to take Holy Communion until
after watching my short version (31 min) of my Bible Study on it: https://youtu.be/RIW44PDgM6w and the
Sermon version at: https://youtu.be/cGExxw8gzdk
Thank you.
LET US SAY "THE LORD'S PRAYER”,
AS CHRIST TAUGHT US TO
PRAY:
Let us take Holy Communion together, after saying the Our
Father, as Jesus told us to pray
together:
THE OUR
FATHER
Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy Will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses
As we
forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.
Forever and ever. Amen.
Gather: your bread
and wine for Holy Communion.
Bread, tortillas, chips, and grape juice, water, or any
juice works.
God understands.
COMMUNION SONG:
1 Corinthians 11:23 – 26 Song: “Take Eat, This is My Body”
Esther
Mui
TOGETHER WE PARTAKE IN HOLY COMMUNION:
We proceed with Holy
Communion, in Remembrance of Christ’s death:
TAKING THE
BODY: We break off the
bread, eat it as His Body, and remember His death for us. Amen. As we chew it
and swallow it, it cleanses our bodies and our souls. (Eat the bread.)
TAKING THE
BLOOD: We drink the wine
that signifies His blood, for the shedding of all sins, as Christ died and took
our place for us on The Cross. (Drink the wine.)
You may sit or kneel after
taking Holy Communion, remembering Christ’s death for you. Christ does not want
us to forget it.
“Sanctify
Me”
By
Danny Nettey
DONATIONS and NEEDS: Pastor Mwesigwa needs $350/mo to feed the orphans. May people
“adopt” a child for $30/mo. May our tithes and offerings cheerfully be given to
meet their needs, Lord, as You love a “Cheerful Giver.” Speak with him directly
through FaceBook, please.
GO PUT YOUR
FUNDS IN A SHOEBOX OR A JAR:
Save
your pennies and give once/month, or once/3 months, if you can. This is your
time to go sock it away. Do this happily! Go now!
DONATION SONG
“Because He Lives I Can Face Tomorrow”
By
Standard YT Video
CLOSING PRAYER BY KIRSTIE: Dear Lord, we bow our heads in respect of
many veterans and the many men and women that have served for our countries. Let
their families find the love, strength and courage they need to carry on with
their lives. Let their loved ones always be remembered as heroes now they do
not feel the soil under their feet anymore. Let their families have NO MORE
TEARS now; their loved ones are at peace in NO MORE PAIN and in the hands of
the Lord himself.
We
also pray for our loved ones who are fighting horrid diseases and who are
fighting for their lives in hospitals. We pray together today for all the
adults, young and elderly men and women and children that are critically ill.
We ask that your healing powers shine down on those who need your healing.
We
also thank you Lord for our loved ones today. We pray all our families find the
strength, love and courage to carry on with their day to day lives. Lord may we
all be blessed by Your hands up on our souls as we all face our day to day lives.
We pray for our family and friends to be blessed and touched by your hands. We
also pray that Pastor Steven gets some more donations to feed OUR orphans in
Africa, so that our children can have the medication, shoes and clothes they
desperately need. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!
CLOSING SONG:
“Healing Hands”
By
Jeremy Camp
DISMISSAL: Holy
Spirit, thank you for bringing your presence into our lives today. Let us make
our bodies holy and pleasing to you. Guide us, Lead us, Form us to the Will of
God. Let us gain holiness in God’s eyes.
Keep
your heart and soul and mind and body full of love, positive outlook, and a
winning WARRIOR attitude for YOU are in God’s spiritual army against evil
forces. God gave us everything to overcome this war. So go. Win.
Go
now in peace to love and serve one another. Forgive your neighbor. I bless you
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I
leave this as your parting song:
“I Can Only Imagine”
By
Alicia Keys
This concludes the Service today. Thank you so much for being gathered here with us! For those of you who want to accept Jesus as your Personal Savior, this is what you need to do so now:
To be “born again,” please note the PLAN
OF SALVATION:
1. All
have sinned. (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8)
2. There
is a penalty for sin (Romans 6:23; John 3:18)
3. You
cannot save yourself (Titus 3:5; James 2:10)
4. Salvation
has been provided (Ephesians 2:8-9; John 3:16; John 14:6)
5. The
conditions are simple: A. Repent (Luke
13:3); B Confess (1 John 1:9; Romans 10:9); C. Believe (Acts 16:31)
6. Now
is your time for a Decision (Joshua 24:15; 2 Corinth 6:2)
Do you repent for your sins?
Do you confess your sins to the Lord?
Do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as the
Son of God, into your heart?
If you answer “yes” to all these questions,
you are now a Born Again Christian! We love you! Welcome to the body of Christ!
Confess it with your mouth, or write it here! You must say it out loud! Praise
the Lord!
Go now, and Spread the Word of God to all
the Ends of the Earth!
******************************************************************
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