Personal Bible Study

Curtis posted links to a few helpful resources for Personal Bible Study at his Blog @ Ogletown.

You can access his post by clicking here.

Here is a link to another Bible reading plan that I have found helpful as well (Personally, I like the book at a time plan).

-Mark

Every enemy of joy is overcome...

I came across this quote recently from Charles Spurgeon (an English Baptist from the 19th century) as posted on a blog called "Of First Importance" and I thought I would pass it along.

“Here in the cross is where every enemy of joy is overcome: divine wrath, as he becomes a curse for us; real guilt, as he becomes forgiveness for us; lawbreaking, as he becomes righteousness for us; estrangement from God, as he becomes reconciliation for us; slavery to Satan, as he becomes redemption for us; bondage to sin, as he becomes liberation for us; pangs of conscience, as he becomes cleansing for us; death, as he becomes the resurrection for us; hell, as he becomes eternal life for us.”- C.H. Spurgeon


-Mark

PowerSource Prayer Focus - Pastor Search Committee

Tonight in PowerSource (our Wednesday evening prayer service) we spent time in focused prayer for our Senior Pastor Search Committee.

Whether you were able to make it or not, please take a moment and pray specifically for each of the members of the committee.

Here are their names:

Richard B.
Mike K.
Bill S.
Corey H.
Peggy P.
George S.
Todd W.

Pray that God would give them wisdom as He guides them in their search.

Planning to Pray

I recently began reading a book called A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Priorities From Paul and His Prayers) by D. A. Carson.

In the first chapter (pg 19), he said something that I found challenging,

"Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray. We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grown in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray.

What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words."

As I consider my weekly schedule, I have found what he says to be true. I am prone to fill my week with so many different activities all while leaving out time for focused prayer. Often in the hectic pace of our lives, we forget just how much we depend on God and continue as if we are capable of handling things on our own.

Just as this is true in our individual prayer lives, it is also true as we pray together as a corporate body of believers. With this in mind, we are looking forward to a renewed emphasis on prayer in our Wednesday evening prayer meeting (henceforth known as Power Source). As we meet together, we hope to spend time in planned and focused prayer as a corporate body of believers.

I plan to post more about prayer in the coming weeks, and hope that you will join us on Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm for Power Source if you are able.

-Mark