Good morning to each one of you. I pray that you are all well. Today we will be looking at God's love letter to us all, The Bible. Do we take time to read it. We have to remember that its a blessing to be able to open it and read through its pages and be blessed by God through it.
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When we are going through difficult times its hard to count our blessing but if we do we will find that there are to many to mention. Let us join together and sing:
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Let us turn to Scripture:
Here are 13 Bible Verses That Encourage Us To Read The Bible:
Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Matthew 4:4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Romans 15:4, For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Psalm 119:9, How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.
Psalm 119:10-11, with my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Isaiah 55:6, Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.
1 Peter 2:2, Like new-born infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation…
Joshua 1:8, This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and have success.
2 Timothy 2:15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
Matthew 24:35, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Hebrews 4:12, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
2 Timothy 3:14-17, 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 servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Psalm 119:118, Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your word.
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As we entre into a time of Prayer, please join with me in singing:
You Are Beautiful Beyond Description.
When we open our Bibles to read, we’re never alone. The Holy Spirit is with us. God is ready to stir our hearts, illumine our minds, and redirect our lives, all for the glory of Jesus. Scripture can make an otherwise ordinary routine supernatural. Prayer is a conversation, with God, a God who speaks to us through scripture. His voice sounds in the Scriptures and climactically in the person and work of his Son. Then, wonder of all wonders, he stops, he stoops, he bends his ear to listen to us as we pray.
let us pray.
Lord our God, we lift our hearts to you, our help in every need. You do so much for us even in difficult times, letting us always see your light and giving us your help in the many things you want us to bear in your strength, Almighty God. In the end you will help all to come to your light. Through your great mercy let us receive your Word. Bless it within our hearts, and help us to serve you everywhere we go and in everything we are allowed to do. Amen.
Please take time to be quiet and bring your prayers before God. then we will share in the Lord's Prayer.
Let us share together in the Lords Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Sing with me: All Creatures Of Our God And king.
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God's Love Letter
If God wrote you a letter, would you bother to open it? Would you read it? Would you turn His words over in your heart? Would it cause you to ponder His great love for you? Well, as things turn out, He has written you a letter. It’s called God’s Word, the Bible. Have you opened it? Have you read it? Have you pondered it in your heart?
We’ve all seen those movies that start with a message in a bottle. You know, it comes across the ocean, it’s washed up on the beach somewhere, and then the person finds the bottle. Now let me ask you something, if you were the person that found that message in the bottle, what would you do?
Here are your choices: (A) Ignore the bottle. (B) Pick it up and throw it back into the ocean. (C) Take it home and forget about it. (D) Open the bottle and read the message. What would it be A, B, C or D?
Well obviously, we would grab the bottle and we would open it, wouldn’t we? Who knows how long it’s been in the ocean or where it’s come from or who wrote the message or what it says? I mean how awesome! A message in a bottle! And what if you opened the bottle and discovered a love letter? A love letter written, in one sense, to anyone and everything but in another sense a love letter written specifically to you. Now that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?
As long as people have had the means to write, there have been love letters written. Cards or flowers have been sent and received. They’re a special way to say, “I love you”, they say I love you in a way that nothing else does. Maybe you have a love letter tucked away somewhere. Love letters are a wonderful thing. There’s one love letter though, that’s more special than any other. It begins something like this:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Then a bit further on in the Net Testament Jesus says this:
“For God, he loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who has faith in Him will have eternal life and never die.” (John 3:16) And, He also said this in John 14:23 “If anyone loves me, they’ll obey me and then my Father will love them and will come to live in them.”
And right at the end of the New Testament in Revelation, this is how the love letter finishes:
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had disappeared entirely, and this new Holy city was coming down from God and I heard a loud voice shout from the throne, God’s home is now with his people. He’ll live with them, and they’ll be his and he’ll be theirs and yes God will make his home among his people, and he’ll wipe away all their tears from their eyes and there will be no more death or suffering or crying or pain. Those things will be gone forever.”
I don’t know about you but I think that’s an awesome love letter and of course you will probably recognise that they are little chunks out of a huge love letter that, these days, we call the Bible. Now, I know some people would say that the Bible is old-fashioned, irrelevant, hard to read, how can I even begin to believe in that stuff’. But when you read those little bits and a whole bunch more of the Bible, what you discover is not fundamentalism at all. You discover divine love.
You see, fundamentalism, a dogmatic expression of religion, was never God’s idea. It’s something that human beings have taken, and twisted Gods love and truth into. But when you read the Bible with an open receiving heart, what you discover is the most awesome love letter ever. The most amazing plan that our God has for your life and my life, here and now and eternally. It’s this huge story of Gods engagement of humanity and we progressively see his love and grace unfold until we meet the person of Jesus Christ.
When I was young, I had negative images of the Bible. I just could not understand how anybody could even begin to believe that stuff. But not anymore. About 40 years ago I started to read God’s love letter to me. And it was because of that love letter, I gave my life over to Him. I’ve heard many Christians say to me that they feel that God seems like He’s a million miles away. Yes, they’ve got their love letter from God, unfortunately though, it’s sitting on a shelf collecting dust. My answer to anyone who feels that God is a million miles away is this. “He’s not – you’ve just put him on the shelf.”
Am I speaking to you directly this morning? Do you need to be shaken out of this attitude that the Bible in an optional extra to a walk with God? Let me say this, the Bible is alive. It’s God’s word and when we approach that book and open it up and say, “Father God, I believe this is you talking to me today. I believe this is your will for my life. I believe that your Holy Spirit wants to shine your love and your light and your grace and your wisdom into my heart today through the words on this page.” I believe it’s the living word of the living God. It’s that message in a bottle. Its God’s love letter to me, then miracles happen.
The Bible was written over a 1500-year period starting around about 1350 BC and ending towards the end of the first century AD. There are three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in the Bible. It has many different authors from different cultures, in different time periods, and different backgrounds with different things going on when those different books of the Bible were written.
The Bible’s been translated into hundreds of languages, and you know something, it’s been copied by hand, word for word. The only way to create copies of the Bible before printing was available was for people called scribes to write the whole thing out, by hand, over and over and over again. And the scholars, the historians, the textual critics will agree that there are almost no errors in this thing.
There are a handful of uncertain words in some non-critical passages but by and large, this is an accurate, very accurate, in fact in historical terms it is the most accurate and well attested historical document that we have from antiquity. It’s the story of God; it’s the story of who God is, what His plan is, who we are in Jesus Christ and how we should respond.
It’s this vast, amazing, profound love letter personally guided down though the oceans of history over the last three and a half thousand years, that say’s God loves us. Its like a message of love in a bottle and now it’s placed in our hands, it’s placed in your hand, it’s placed in my hand. God has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to preserve his love letter for you and me, here and now, today.
I’ve heard said many times, “I’m just too busy to read the Bible.” Do you see how feeble that is? Do you see how inappropriate that is? No wonder it feels like God is a million miles away. All the time, he just wants to speak His promises into our hearts, whisper His love into our ears, His grace into our lives and the one principle means that he has chosen to do that, Is through his love letter, to you, the Bible God our Father has brought us near to Him through faith in Jesus Christ. God has set up his home in us through his Holy Spirit. God is with us in every moment of every day, right through the cut and thrust of life. God calls us to an intimate relationship with Him and God has a love letter for you. That love letter is called the Bible. God is there in its pages and you can read about Him crying out to you saying, “Be close to me too, your Father God.”
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Let us listen to: By His Hand
The Lord bless thee and keep thee
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee
And bring thee peace
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