MONDAY 9TH NOVEMBER
1 Samuel 1.4-20
I will give him to the Lord

Hannah was really distressed.  More than anything she wanted to have a child.  It seemed that she would never fall pregnant.  Every year when they came up to the temple to give thanks to God, it made her feel worse as she had no child to thank God for.  The other ladies gave her a hard time. This made her feel worse still.

She went into the temple and prayed. She pleaded with God to give her a son.  When the priest, Eli, saw her praying in such a distressing way, he thought she was drunk.  “No”, she said, “I have not been drinking, I am just distressed that I am childless”. Hannah then made a promise to the Lord.  She promised Him that if she had a son she would give him to the Lord.  Eli could see she had great faith, even though she was so distressed and said to her with much boldness, “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him”.  Immediately, joy came into her heart.  She was full of smiles.  Deep down she was convinced God had answered her prayer.

Is there anything that distresses you?  Is there a prayer that doesn’t seem to be answered?  If you are in this predicament, why not offer what you are praying for completely to the Lord - make a real sacrifice.  Who knows, soon the God who does not change will be ready to answer your prayer too.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, we give to you our whole lives as living sacrifices. Everything we ask for we promise to give to you.  Fill us with faith to believe and fill our hearts with joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

TUESDAY 10TH NOVEMBER
Psalm 16
Joy in His presence

Did you know that we who know God are the happiest people on earth. When we have such a relationship with God, we can take refuge in Him.  This makes us so very, very secure.  People who are secure are always happy.  Those who go after other gods are miserable.  The gods of materialism and personal wealth or the god of “being yourself” (as the humanists say), etc. cause people’s sorrows to increase.  In the end they are never happy.

Once you have accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour of your life and know God our Father loves you so much that He will never let you go, you realise that you just can’t live without Him.  Apart from Him we can do nothing good; therefore, apart from Him all the joy draws out from our lives.

As well as a tremendous sense of safeness and security in God’s presence, there are some wonderful things that we born-again Christians can look forward to.  Every day the Lord is there to counsel us as He speaks to us through His Word.  Because He is with us all the time, nothing in the whole world can shake us.  As well, we have an absolutely delightful inheritance.  When we die, God will not abandon us.  He will save us to be with Him for ever.  The joy we now experience because we are one with God will continue on after we die, but it will be a million times better than it is now.

PRAYER: Thank you dear Father God that knowing you makes us feel so safe and fills us with so much joy.  Help us to radiate your joy so everyone will want to give their lives to you, through Jesus our Saviour.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 11TH NOVEMBER
Hebrews 10.11-25
Made perfect for ever

We have recently celebrated All Saints Day.  The church has made a mistake separating “All Saints” from “All Souls”. The Bible tells us that we are all saints - yes, you and I are saints! When I say we, I mean all those who have repented of sin and self-justification and have surrendered their lives to God, and trusted in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to cleanse them from all sin.  Today the Bible speaks to us very powerfully.  It says we have been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (v10).  However, Jesus hasn’t finished with us yet.  We have not yet become what, by His sacrificial death, He has already made us.  Verse 14 says that by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.  God is like the perfect builder.  He has bought the plans and materials and He is making the perfect building.  We are that building.  In His mind we are complete.  In reality we are being made to be complete.

To be made holy is to have all the imperfections removed from us.  When God gets rid of our sins, He does it so well that He does not even remember that we have sinned.  He blots out our past life from His memory.

PRAYER: Father God, you have given us so much confidence to know we are going to enter Heaven one day.  We draw near to you through Jesus and know He is cleansing us with His precious blood.  He who died to make us perfect is making us holy every day, through the sacrifice of Jesus our Saviour.  Amen.

THURSDAY 12TH NOVEMBER
Hebrews 10.31-39
Do not throw away your confidence

The author of this letter (Hebrews) is writing to a people who have been going through severe persecutions and life has been getting very difficult for them.  At times they are tempted to give up. Some were losing all their material possessions, some were in prison, others knew that they were going to be made martyrs.

When things begin to go wrong in our lives, and it looks like we are in danger of losing everything, it does not mean we have to throw in the towel.  Because we know Jesus, because we know we have a wonderful inheritance, we know that our life on earth and material possessions are not worth hanging on to.  We have something so much better to look forward to. 

So we are called by God to persevere. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  God will always give us enough faith to stay tough and resist the temptation to shrink back.  God warns us that if we do shrink back we will be destroyed and lose our valuable eternal inheritance.  So, clinging onto Jesus, we go forward.  We are the righteous ones who live by faith.  “We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who believe and are saved” (v39).

PRAYER: Father, thank you for promising us a much better life in Heaven than the one we leave behind.  Help us to be willing to let go of this life and endure all the suffering that may come our way without losing faith and shrinking back. Save us from throwing away our confidence.  We are sure we will receive what is promised, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

FRIDAY 13TH NOVEMBER
Daniel 12.1-3
Names written in the Book of Life

At this time of the year we think once again about the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus.  Today the Bible tells us that just before the end there will be a very trying time for us all.  Through St Michael, the great Archangel, God will protect us through all the devastation. When we are saved, when we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  This is when we make the decision to stop trying to save ourselves and put all our faith and trust in the fact that Jesus died on the cross to make us holy and acceptable to God.  Really, it’s just receiving Jesus into our lives.  As the Bible says, all who receive Jesus become God’s children.  When our names are written in the Book of Life we are absolutely sure we will be cleansed and be His for ever.  In Heaven we will shine like stars. Some will shine brighter than others.  The ones who shine the brightest will be those who lead many people to Jesus.  The very, very most important thing that any one of us can do on earth is to lead others to Christ.

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for writing my name in the Book of Life, when I give my life to you and by faith accept you as Saviour and Lord of my life.  Empower me with your Holy Spirit and enable me to be a powerful witness drawing many others to Christ so that they, too, may have their names written in your Book of Life and be delivered. Amen.

SATURDAY 14th. NOVEMBER
Mark 13.1-11, 24-32
The Second Coming

Down through the ages, whenever God has poured out His Spirit and many people have turned to Him and been saved, God has always reminded us of the Second Coming of Jesus.  God makes us feel as if the final end of all things is very close.  The first disciples and those who wrote the New Testament books thought the end would come before they died.

That was 2,000 years ago.  Still, today, we hear preachers proclaim that it’s only a few years until Jesus comes again. I believe Jesus makes us feel it’s so near because of the urgency of getting as many people into Heaven as possible.

To God it’s very near as to Him a thousand years are like one day. Anyway, our own death is fairly close.  None of us will be on this earth for ever. God wants us to witness to as many people as we can. He wants us to lead all our friends to Him. We do not know when the end will be - it could be tomorrow. This means we have not got much time left. May we all get the feeling of urgency. Let’s all stop procrastinating. Let’s get close to Jesus and receive power from His Spirit to enable us to win many people for Him so when He comes again to collect everyone for Heaven, all our friends will be collected as well.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, fill us with your Holy Spirit and your love for all the unsaved.  Make us powerful witnesses.  Enable us to lead them to you.  Lord, as much as you do, we want everyone we know to be saved. Amen.

SUNDAY 15TH.NOVEMBER
This week’s message
 Jesus gets us ready for His Second Coming

In our gospel today Jesus warns us that very soon He is going to come again and tells us that it is very important that we make sure that we are ready for Him when He comes. How do we get ready for Jesus?   The answer is very simple.    All we have to do is to completely surrender our lives into the hands of Jesus and then He gets us ready. We are moved to make this act of surrender when we hear the Good news, the gospel of our salvation; when we hear that God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross to take all our sins away.

When we surrender our lives to Jesus we receive Him into our hearts as Lord and Saviour and are included into Christ’s Body, and we become His children.  As we make the decision to surrender our lives to Him, Jesus performs a mighty miracle in us and He begins our preparation for eternal life and heaven.   The miracle is that He causes us to be born again as completely new people.    He marks us with the seal of His Holy Spirit.   The Holy Spirit working in us is like a deposit, guaranteeing that we will make it to heaven.    From this moment on Jesus claims us as His own and writes our names in the Lamb’s book of life.

The Bible says to us today: “By one sacrifice Jesus has made perfect for ever those who are being made Holy” (Hebrews 10:14). This describes the on going way in which Jesus prepares us for His Second coming and for eternal life. When Jesus sacrificed Himself for us on the cross He did all that needed to be done to make everyone of us perfect.  He payed the penalty our sins deserve.  He purified us and washed us in His precious blood. As we live the Christian life, staying close to Jesus and continuously putting our faith and trust in Him, He gives us  the Holy Spirit to apply all that He has done for us to our lives.

The Holy Spirit uses all the power Jesus released when He died on the cross to make us holy. The two chief sacraments of the church signify the way Jesus prepares us for Heaven. Baptism is the outward sign of our being included in Christ’s Body and being born again as God’schildren. The Holy Communion is the outward sign of our receiving the power Jesus released when He died on the cross which purifies us and makes us holy

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus thank you so much that your love for us was so great that you sacrificed yourself on the cross to make us holy. We thank you that by this sacrifice you have made it possible for all of us to go to heaven. Help us all to trust what you have done for us and accept you as the Lord and Saviour of our lives. As we surrender our lives to you please make sure our names are written in Your Lamb’s Book of Life so that when you come again we can be absolutely sure we will be with you in heaven. Jesus our loving saviour we trust you to keep us yours for ever. Amen

MONDAY 9TH NOVEMBER
1 Samuel 1.4-20
I will give him to the Lord

Hannah was really distressed.  More than anything she wanted to have a child.  It seemed that she would never fall pregnant.  Every year when they came up to the temple to give thanks to God, it made her feel worse as she had no child to thank God for.  The other ladies gave her a hard time. This made her feel worse still.

She went into the temple and prayed. She pleaded with God to give her a son.  When the priest, Eli, saw her praying in such a distressing way, he thought she was drunk.  “No”, she said, “I have not been drinking, I am just distressed that I am childless”. Hannah then made a promise to the Lord.  She promised Him that if she had a son she would give him to the Lord.  Eli could see she had great faith, even though she was so distressed and said to her with much boldness, “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him”.  Immediately, joy came into her heart.  She was full of smiles.  Deep down she was convinced God had answered her prayer.

Is there anything that distresses you?  Is there a prayer that doesn’t seem to be answered?  If you are in this predicament, why not offer what you are praying for completely to the Lord - make a real sacrifice.  Who knows, soon the God who does not change will be ready to answer your prayer too.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, we give to you our whole lives as living sacrifices. Everything we ask for we promise to give to you.  Fill us with faith to believe and fill our hearts with joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

TUESDAY 10TH NOVEMBER
Psalm 16
Joy in His presence

Did you know that we who know God are the happiest people on earth. When we have such a relationship with God, we can take refuge in Him.  This makes us so very, very secure.  People who are secure are always happy.  Those who go after other gods are miserable.  The gods of materialism and personal wealth or the god of “being yourself” (as the humanists say), etc. cause people’s sorrows to increase.  In the end they are never happy.

Once you have accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour of your life and know God our Father loves you so much that He will never let you go, you realise that you just can’t live without Him.  Apart from Him we can do nothing good; therefore, apart from Him all the joy draws out from our lives.

As well as a tremendous sense of safeness and security in God’s presence, there are some wonderful things that we born-again Christians can look forward to.  Every day the Lord is there to counsel us as He speaks to us through His Word.  Because He is with us all the time, nothing in the whole world can shake us.  As well, we have an absolutely delightful inheritance.  When we die, God will not abandon us.  He will save us to be with Him for ever.  The joy we now experience because we are one with God will continue on after we die, but it will be a million times better than it is now.

PRAYER: Thank you dear Father God that knowing you makes us feel so safe and fills us with so much joy.  Help us to radiate your joy so everyone will want to give their lives to you, through Jesus our Saviour.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 11TH NOVEMBER
Hebrews 10.11-25
Made perfect for ever

We have recently celebrated All Saints Day.  The church has made a mistake separating “All Saints” from “All Souls”. The Bible tells us that we are all saints - yes, you and I are saints! When I say we, I mean all those who have repented of sin and self-justification and have surrendered their lives to God, and trusted in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to cleanse them from all sin.  Today the Bible speaks to us very powerfully.  It says we have been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (v10).  However, Jesus hasn’t finished with us yet.  We have not yet become what, by His sacrificial death, He has already made us.  Verse 14 says that by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.  God is like the perfect builder.  He has bought the plans and materials and He is making the perfect building.  We are that building.  In His mind we are complete.  In reality we are being made to be complete.

To be made holy is to have all the imperfections removed from us.  When God gets rid of our sins, He does it so well that He does not even remember that we have sinned.  He blots out our past life from His memory.

PRAYER: Father God, you have given us so much confidence to know we are going to enter Heaven one day.  We draw near to you through Jesus and know He is cleansing us with His precious blood.  He who died to make us perfect is making us holy every day, through the sacrifice of Jesus our Saviour.  Amen.

THURSDAY 12TH NOVEMBER
Hebrews 10.31-39
Do not throw away your confidence

The author of this letter (Hebrews) is writing to a people who have been going through severe persecutions and life has been getting very difficult for them.  At times they are tempted to give up. Some were losing all their material possessions, some were in prison, others knew that they were going to be made martyrs.

When things begin to go wrong in our lives, and it looks like we are in danger of losing everything, it does not mean we have to throw in the towel.  Because we know Jesus, because we know we have a wonderful inheritance, we know that our life on earth and material possessions are not worth hanging on to.  We have something so much better to look forward to. 

So we are called by God to persevere. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  God will always give us enough faith to stay tough and resist the temptation to shrink back.  God warns us that if we do shrink back we will be destroyed and lose our valuable eternal inheritance.  So, clinging onto Jesus, we go forward.  We are the righteous ones who live by faith.  “We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who believe and are saved” (v39).

PRAYER: Father, thank you for promising us a much better life in Heaven than the one we leave behind.  Help us to be willing to let go of this life and endure all the suffering that may come our way without losing faith and shrinking back. Save us from throwing away our confidence.  We are sure we will receive what is promised, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

FRIDAY 13TH NOVEMBER
Daniel 12.1-3
Names written in the Book of Life

At this time of the year we think once again about the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus.  Today the Bible tells us that just before the end there will be a very trying time for us all.  Through St Michael, the great Archangel, God will protect us through all the devastation. When we are saved, when we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  This is when we make the decision to stop trying to save ourselves and put all our faith and trust in the fact that Jesus died on the cross to make us holy and acceptable to God.  Really, it’s just receiving Jesus into our lives.  As the Bible says, all who receive Jesus become God’s children.  When our names are written in the Book of Life we are absolutely sure we will be cleansed and be His for ever.  In Heaven we will shine like stars. Some will shine brighter than others.  The ones who shine the brightest will be those who lead many people to Jesus.  The very, very most important thing that any one of us can do on earth is to lead others to Christ.

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for writing my name in the Book of Life, when I give my life to you and by faith accept you as Saviour and Lord of my life.  Empower me with your Holy Spirit and enable me to be a powerful witness drawing many others to Christ so that they, too, may have their names written in your Book of Life and be delivered. Amen.

SATURDAY 14th. NOVEMBER
Mark 13.1-11, 24-32
The Second Coming

Down through the ages, whenever God has poured out His Spirit and many people have turned to Him and been saved, God has always reminded us of the Second Coming of Jesus.  God makes us feel as if the final end of all things is very close.  The first disciples and those who wrote the New Testament books thought the end would come before they died.

That was 2,000 years ago.  Still, today, we hear preachers proclaim that it’s only a few years until Jesus comes again. I believe Jesus makes us feel it’s so near because of the urgency of getting as many people into Heaven as possible.

To God it’s very near as to Him a thousand years are like one day. Anyway, our own death is fairly close.  None of us will be on this earth for ever. God wants us to witness to as many people as we can. He wants us to lead all our friends to Him. We do not know when the end will be - it could be tomorrow. This means we have not got much time left. May we all get the feeling of urgency. Let’s all stop procrastinating. Let’s get close to Jesus and receive power from His Spirit to enable us to win many people for Him so when He comes again to collect everyone for Heaven, all our friends will be collected as well.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, fill us with your Holy Spirit and your love for all the unsaved.  Make us powerful witnesses.  Enable us to lead them to you.  Lord, as much as you do, we want everyone we know to be saved. Amen.

SUNDAY 15TH.NOVEMBER
This week’s message
 Jesus gets us ready for His Second Coming

In our gospel today Jesus warns us that very soon He is going to come again and tells us that it is very important that we make sure that we are ready for Him when He comes. How do we get ready for Jesus?   The answer is very simple.    All we have to do is to completely surrender our lives into the hands of Jesus and then He gets us ready. We are moved to make this act of surrender when we hear the Good news, the gospel of our salvation; when we hear that God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross to take all our sins away.

When we surrender our lives to Jesus we receive Him into our hearts as Lord and Saviour and are included into Christ’s Body, and we become His children.  As we make the decision to surrender our lives to Him, Jesus performs a mighty miracle in us and He begins our preparation for eternal life and heaven.   The miracle is that He causes us to be born again as completely new people.    He marks us with the seal of His Holy Spirit.   The Holy Spirit working in us is like a deposit, guaranteeing that we will make it to heaven.    From this moment on Jesus claims us as His own and writes our names in the Lamb’s book of life.

The Bible says to us today: “By one sacrifice Jesus has made perfect for ever those who are being made Holy” (Hebrews 10:14). This describes the on going way in which Jesus prepares us for His Second coming and for eternal life. When Jesus sacrificed Himself for us on the cross He did all that needed to be done to make everyone of us perfect.  He payed the penalty our sins deserve.  He purified us and washed us in His precious blood. As we live the Christian life, staying close to Jesus and continuously putting our faith and trust in Him, He gives us  the Holy Spirit to apply all that He has done for us to our lives.

The Holy Spirit uses all the power Jesus released when He died on the cross to make us holy. The two chief sacraments of the church signify the way Jesus prepares us for Heaven. Baptism is the outward sign of our being included in Christ’s Body and being born again as God’schildren. The Holy Communion is the outward sign of our receiving the power Jesus released when He died on the cross which purifies us and makes us holy

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus thank you so much that your love for us was so great that you sacrificed yourself on the cross to make us holy. We thank you that by this sacrifice you have made it possible for all of us to go to heaven. Help us all to trust what you have done for us and accept you as the Lord and Saviour of our lives. As we surrender our lives to you please make sure our names are written in Your Lamb’s Book of Life so that when you come again we can be absolutely sure we will be with you in heaven. Jesus our loving saviour we trust you to keep us yours for ever. Amen