March 15, 2009
Sunday 10:00am WLEX TV Channel 18

It is requested that all children under the age of five stay in our nursery
so there will be no distractions during the preaching of the Gospel.

HYMN OF THE DAY

Look upon me, Lord, I pray Thee
Let Thy Spirit dwell in mine
Thou hast sought me, Thou hast bought me
Take my heart and make it Thine.

Nought I ask for, nought I strive for
But Thy grace so rich and free
This Thou givest by the Saviour
He hath all things who hath Thee.

Precious is the name of Jesus
Who can half its worth unfold?
Far beyond angelic praises
Sweetly sung to harps of gold.

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah
Pilgrim through this barren land
I am weak, but Thou art mighty
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.

(Tune: “Jesus Calls Us” p. 374)


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We will have a special meeting April 17 – 19.
Speakers will be Donnie Bell, Bruce Crabtree, and Jesse Gistand.

Please pick up your dishes from the kitchen by April 5th. We are cleaning the kitchen and will discard anything not picked up.


Birthdays
16th – Jacob Davis 17th – Gene Rutledge 19th – Rachel Daniel
21st – Doris Daniel 21st – Frank Singleton
“Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” - Proverb 24:27


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FOR BETTER OR WORSE?
Paul said to the church at Corinth, “I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.” (I Cor. 11:17). He then said in verse 20, “When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating everyone taketh before his own supper. And one is hungry and another is drunken.” When they gathered together to take the Lord’s table, there was a wrong attitude toward others and intoxication! ; Their gathering together in reality was harmful and destructive.
When we gather together, either in public worship or in social gatherings…it is either for the better or the worse. In our worship services, is the Gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit? If not we have surely gathered together for the worse. When we gather together socially, do we fellowship in the Gospel and edify one another with our Christ honoring conversation? If not, we have gathered together for the worse! May we be careful and seek the Lord’s help to gather together for the better rather than the worse.


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CHRIST MUST BE ALL!
We cannot keep our eye too exclusively or too intently fixed upon Jesus. All salvation is in Him. All salvation proceeds from Him. All salvation leads to Him. And for the assurance and comfort of our salvation we are to repose believingly and entirely on Him. Christ must be all! Christ the beginning – Christ the center – Christ the end.
Oh, sweet truth to you who are sensible of your poverty, vileness, and insufficiency, and of the ten thousand flaws and failures of which, perhaps, no one is cognizant but God and your own soul! Oh, to turn and rest in Christ – a full Christ – a loving Christ – a tender Christ, whose heart’s love never chills, from whose eyes dart no reproof, from whose lips breathes no sentence of condemnation! Christ must be all!
- Octavius Winslow (1808-1878)
; Men and women are not going to come to hear you preach “the doctrines of grace.” But if needy sinners get wind of the fact that you are preaching “the Christ of grace,” they will give you a hearing. When you only preach to my head in facts so numerous and terms so tedious, you weary me and forget that I am a human with emotions and a hungry HEART! I laugh, I cry, I love, I feel, I sorrow, I doubt, I fear, and I need a minister with whom I can identify in all of these, who has the message of God’s mercy, not cold, calculated creeds which ignore these human traits.
The Arminian cheerleader sings joyful hymns, weeps, laughs, rejoices, and calls for men to commit themselves to a movement with NO message of hope or assurance. The Calvinistic professor stands rigidly in his pulpit of pious orthodoxy, daring not to sweep lest he be called emotional, daring not to laugh lest he be thought frivolous, daring not to call mourners or seekers lest he be called a free-willer, daring not to let people know him or get close to him lest he lose their respect and awe. Someone may find out he is only a sinner saved by grace. “Lord, deliver me from having to listen to either one of them, and send me an Elijah of like passions who will minister to my heart and to my head – the whole man. – Author Unknown


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Robert Murray M’Cheyne once wrote, ‘If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room I would not fear a million enemies. YET, the distance makes no difference: He IS praying for me.” “He ever liveth to make intercession for us” (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34). What faith challenging words! “Lord, increase our faith.” “It is the work of faith,” says Thomas Manton, “to give things absent and at a distance a present being (reality!), in the heart of a believer.” (I Cor. 4:17,18).

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God’s sovereignty lies at the foundation of all things, YET in His dealings with men – His own people not accepted – He always treats them as moral agents, enforces their accountability, and causes them to reap as they have sown, whether it was evil or good seed. – A. W. Pink