FOR THOSE WHO OBSERVE LENT

Bishop Paul Bradley, Sermon about LENT.

A.  Lent is not about me doing it.   

-It is about Jesus wanting me

-It is the period to take time to examine what gets in the way with our relationship with Jesus.

B.  Temptation             

-Went to the desert to contemplate who he was

-Satan tempts him three times

-Death comes to all things sometimes in the future

-Jesus knew what was of life and death

-Satan has no power to convince us otherwise but he can tempt us and convince us

           

C.  Temptation comes with the selection of a few.

Lent is not about me doing it; it’s about Jesus wanting me. It is the period to take time to examine what gets in the way with our relationship with Jesus. What are the things that keep us away from him, how is the relationship going? Temptation is another huge part in this.  Jesus went to the desert to think of who he was, what position he holds in our life.  Satan tempts Jesus three times but he does not give in because he knew the purpose of him coming on to earth in the first place. It’s not like he could not Just give in but he did not because he loves us and he stood by his decision.

Death comes to all things sometimes in the future. Every living thing must die at some point, and since Jesus came in form of a being, he too must die at some point. Jesus knew what was coming and that is why he was acting the way he was. He knew everything that is there to follow for the prophesy to be completed. Satan has no power to convince us otherwise but he can tempt us. Satan does not have that power, so since he doesn’t have the power, he uses other tactics in order to get us tempted and most if the time we fall for it and there he goes, he won.

In this, our Bishop asked; what in your life will last forever? What are your timeless treasures? What are the destructions you allow? These are simple question but have a lot of weights in them. 

These apply to my life very well.  Looking at these questions, I correct myself. To do what is right and to be alarmed of the things that can cause me harm. Discovering the destructions that I allow made me aware of who I am now, and what I should be like which are two different things. What are the things that I treasure the

Therefore most???  Questions like these are to be considered and thought of well!!!

By  Rose Turuka         Kalamazoo Christians High School               

Joel Osteen says If You Believe, All Things Are Possible

SUNDAY MESSAGE: GOD VS ANSWER PRAYER

Why God Doesn't Answer Everyone's Prayers?

The bible tells us that, “ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Matthew 7:7); it continues teaching us that, “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14)

What is the role of prayer? Simple answer is to establish a good relationship with God; as we see in Lord’s Prayer that the relationship puts our father's will first in our life and let him be our Lord and determine what we need; it should born in our minds that God cannot bring satisfaction to prayer in the past because it is gone forever, and he cannot answer a prayer for the future, because we are not there yet! As Matthew 6:34 tells us that "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Gods listens to today’s prayer and it must be prayed over and over in each today. 

God hears the prayer of a righteous person Are you. The Bible says, in Proverbs 15:29, "The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous." Are you a "righteous person?"

In other way as Jeremiah 29:13: describes that “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

The Question now is why God answer the prayer in his own way?

This is how God acts with us. He knows better what we need. Sometimes we think that God is ridiculous, and God just needs to listen to what we want—but He refuses to give us what is bad for us.

If we are in difficulties and it seems that God isn’t answering our prayer, then we need to just trust in God. God is the one who knows what is best for us, and will give us what is best. Sometimes what is best for us comes in the form of difficulties or problems or temptations that we just want to go away. But God is the one who loves us more than we love ourselves, and so will help us in accord with what we need, not according to our childish requests. (Luke 11:11-13: Hebrews 12:5-11; James 1:13-17; II Corinthians 12:7

If God is not answering your prayer is simply because “You ask and you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives—you ask in order that you may obtain your own pleasures.” (James 4:3)

Therefore “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14, 15). Otherwise call on your Lord humbly and secretly; surely He does not love those who exceed the limits.” And the biggest of all “call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” (Psalm 50:15) -Amen

Joel Osteen -Enlarge Your Circle of Love (part1)

SUNDAY MEDITATION: Psalm 103:13

This Sunday meditation Message is coming from Psalm 103:13 

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him”

This is a very strong massage in our Christians life the only question for our meditation is “How we can fulfill it? 

Sunday Message: GOD’S BLESSINGS

This Sunday message let us therefore not allow our minds to be programmed by the worldly viewpoint that dominates the earth. We should remember that there is no problem that holiness will not solve. No matter what the problem is no matter how big or small, important or unimportant, you are entitled to a miracle because you are a child of God as long as we can humble ourselves and pray to him for the miracle

 God promised us through II Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" 

According to this bible message we need to understand that God is so good and fair he respects our freedom of choice and free will, prayer enables him to step into our lives. God has limited his powers in our lives to the importance that we place on prayer. Prayer gives God the permission to do what he has been longing to do all the time. Even when we do not see anything significant occurring, God is still at work solving the problem. When there are apparently no answers, God is still is waiting for the proper time to give us the solution.

As James 4:3: Outlines that; "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly". So tell God the problem and then focus on God. He loves to work out difficulties in our lives and if you keep your focus on God, then one way or another he will solve that problem. This is what the Lord meant when he proclaimed in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give your rest or Psalm 55:22 Throw every burden upon God.

Psalm 68:19 Blessed be Our God who daily carries the load for us.

Psalm 56:9 This I well know, that God is for me.

WHY WE ARE NOT SPENDING A LOT OF TIME WITH GOD?

· May be because we have too much stuff taking place in our hectic lives so we put prayer completely out of our minds;

· May be we do find that prayer as inactive, because we want immediate solutions to immediate problems, so we don't want to wait around for God to do something because we never know how long he may take?

As when we meditate this Sunday  let remember the book of Daniel 10:12 “Then he said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.’”

Let finish our Sunday message by answering these questions;

How much time do you spend in prayer? 

Do you go to work without praying? 

Do you go to sleep without praying?

How much do you depend on prayer?  

How much do you depend on God to answer your prayers?  

If you don’t pray, you aren’t trusting in God to answer your prayers!

BEST WISHES AS YOU TAKE ACT EXAMS TODAY

Dear  Wanjiku and Rose 

Best wishes from the Bible

1 Chronicles 28:20 
David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.  Psalm 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? 
Psalm 56:3-4 When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? 

Best wishes from Mr. and Mrs. Turuka 

The only thing we can wish all of you ( Wanjiku and Rose), before and during exams; Be courageous Be calm and Be self equipped with facts and figures and you will find exams very easy. There is no short cut and God cannot do any miracle without your personal effort which includes study hard, understand the question(s) then God will stand on your side with all the blessing of passing ACT; Remember A journey of a thousand miles started with only one step.

Together we wish you all Good luck and best of luck in your exams, as it is the first step of your career

Emmanuel, Grace and Alpha