Preaching with a purpose

I have always been impatient with people who do not persevere with their hearing aids. When you first have a hearing aid all the background noises seem very loud, but if you just keep it in all day every day this soon settles, as the brain discovers what to filter out. I did this. However I found the contraption very fiddly to handle and the connecting tube from the actual aid to the ear mould was difficult to attach to the mould and kept falling out. This was very irritating. After about six weeks of coping very well I started having trouble putting the mould in my ear and the aid didn't seem to be working. I think I have it sorted now. It is a question of putting the mould into the ear gently. I think I had been pushing it up against the side of the ear hole instead of placing it so that the nozzle faced into the ear. When your hearing aid is troublesome it is very irritating and fills one with anger. However it is wonderful when it is working and means I am not missing

If you start doubting your Bible where will it end? If you don't accept God made a fish to rescue Jonah, will you be able to believe in the miracles Jesus did? Will you be able to believe in the virgin birth? Will you be able to believe in the resurrection? Will you be able to believe in the greatest miracle, that God could reconcile us to himself through the death of Jesus? Be careful what you discard from the Bible, or you could end up with a book with the pages of a birthday card. Hold on to the truth God has sent down to us through the ages. Many people in our world long to own a Bible while most people in the West ignore it or pull it apart. What fools we are.

I do and when the preacher says that the great fish that God sent to rescue Jonah, was a red herring, my heart aches at this lack of belief. It clearly states that God had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. God knew Jonah was going to need rescuing so he had already prepared the fish. Jesus spoke of Jonah spending three days and nights in the fish and treated it as prophecy about his own time in the grave. If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me. Another thing if there was no big fish Jonah would certainly have drowned. After all God is Almighty and preparing a fish for the occasion was no problem for him, Are you in dire straits? God will come to your rescue too. He already has it planned, don't despair.

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At last I am ready to do some real work in my christian life. All my life so far has been a preparation for what I am able to do now. I am so glad to have discovered that I have a real ability to officiate at a funeral in a sensitive and caring way. This is wonderful. My training as a Local Preacher has ,of course, prepared me for the actual speaking I have to do, but God has also given me the ability to care for the relatives of the deceased before, during and after the funeral. I do not want to be one of those professionals who go through the motions and trot out a service with no personal involvment. This is a difficult time for the family and I want to be "there" for them and not just trot out platitudes. I am able to care but also able to keep that little bit of distance that means I am not so emotionally involved that I cry. That is for the family to do, I am there to express their feelings in words and to present the good news of Jesus in the Bible readings and

If you love Jesus, use your home to help others find him. I am a poor housewife, not at all good at tidying, but when I have the Bible Study Group come around, it gives me the incentive, I need, to get some tidying done. That is a blessing in itself. You don't need to be very much into knowing your Bible, you can just host the meeting and soon you will be learning more. You will know great blessing through doing this.

I celebrated the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen's reign by having a chicken roast dinner with my family. Later I drove thirty miles to a place where I meet other christians and we had a pitch at a local park where other people were having stalls for various charities. We had lots of old magazines telling the story of the coronation and previous jubilees. We also had various booklets explaining the gospel story. We were available to talk to people about our beliefs. One man who declared himself to be an atheist chatted with us for quite some time. We hope we helped him take another look at what he believes. There is nothing more wonderful than speaking about Jesus and seeking to help others find him for themselves.

The undertaker was obviously pleased with the funeral service I took a fortnight ago, as he has asked me to take another. This time it will be a short committal service in a country cemetery. This is a beautiful place surrounded by pasture land with a river running through and a hill in the near distance. A young women has died suddenly, in her 50's.The relatives are simple country folk who need to know their daughter is respected at this time. I hope that the words I say will give them some comfort in their loss. As I said in my previous post this is a position of great privilege to be near a family in their extreme grief. It is not a time for deciding how the departed stands in relation to God. God is holy and just, good and merciful, only he knows the secrets of our hearts. We are there to declare that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and leave the Spirit to apply those words to the hearts of those present.