Prayer

This week’s reading:

The king said to me, "What is it you want?" Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king!

Nehemiah 2:4-5


- Before you do anything, don't forget to pray.
- In every situation you can call on God in prayer.
- You have the liberty to call on God at any and all times.
- Even in stressful situations, He hears your quick and urgent prayers.

Have a blessed week

Hope

This week’s reading:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 5:1-5


Eish! All roads at NR lead to dealing with faith at the moment! Must be on God’s hear t for us.

Faith is living out hope, knowing that everything small thing we do for Him matters, because God does not want the world to be hurting, lost and confused. He certainly wants to free it from sin!

The work that NR is doing through each one of us is bringing that hope to a concrete manifestation in the lives of those that we are able to reach.
The awesome thing is that as we grow spiritually, and in numbers, we will be able to be greater agents of hope.

Worship

This week’s reading:

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

John 4:19-26

Liezel read from passage this morning in the NR Staff devotions.
I have read this passage many times but something just clicked for me today.
God is spirit and we need to worship Him in spirit and truth.

What does this mean?

For me:

‘In Spirit’ means God is to be worshipped, not only in church, but in every place His Spirit dwells:

- In us
- In our homes
- In our workplaces
- In our cars
- Everywhere!

‘In Truth’ means:

- Him only
- When we confront our own weakness and sin
- When we recognise we are in the middle of the struggle between God and Satan
- That the world needs a Saviour more than anything else
- The Truth is found in Jesus, His teachings, His life, death and Resurrection
- When we are able to sing, pray and move in the Spirit

May you worship God in Spirit and Truth.

Blessings

God's Promise

This week’s reading :


Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-4

This word of encouragement comes with a promise.
1. Work to be Christ-like
2. Then we will share in His glory

This promise is related to our taking our responsibility seriously.

My prayer is that we will continually work to be Christ like in all that we do.

Learning

This week’s reading:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:14-17

It’s awesome to think that in God’s world, we never stop learning.
I believe we have grown significantly this year at NR. This has been largely due to our obedience to the Word.
I believe that we must also take our learning into our homes and workplaces.

- Our children need to learn about God from us.Children’s church and church will introduce them to Jesus but they will know Him through us.

- The same goes for our friends and wider family

- The same goes for our work colleagues

Learning is discovering.
Discovering is finding.
Finding is knowing.
Knowing is living.

Have a blessed week.

This week’s reading:

Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

2 Timothy 2:11-13

Isn’t the faithfulness of God amazing?
He will remain faithful despite our failures and weaknesses.
All He asks is that we remain faithful to Him.

May you grow in your faithfulness this week.

Blessings

This week’s reading:

I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.
The poor will see and be glad-- you who seek God, may your hearts live!
The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.

Psalm 69:30-33

Isn’t it amazing that all we have to do to please God is to sing His praises.
We do so in song, in word and in behaviour.

This is important to understand : as we live more and more for Him, our lives become our praises to Him.

Have a blessed week.