Winter Newsletter 2024

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Jesus Christ Witness God’s Victorious Army

Charity No. 1081578 www.godpod.org.uk
Winter 2024 NEWSLETTER

Charity No. 1081578 www.godpod.org.uk

Assurance & Affliction.
Season’s Greetings
In 597 Augustine baptised 10,000 Saxons on the first recorded Christmas day. Then in 601 Pope
Gregory the Great wrote telling Augustine to absorb pre-existing Christians into celebrating
Christmas. In 700 historian Bede wrote the Anglii (English) celebrate the 25th Dec as the new year
in their tongue (Modranicht) mothers’ night the birth of their Lord.
Nothing to do with the Lord’s birth – heaven is silent as to the day and month of such an amaz-ing time in the world. [Isa 7v14 and 9v6].

The Lord said “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing” Gen 18v17. In 1 Tim 1v15 we are told the reason Jesus came was to save us from our sins, it is a faithful saying for God is faithful, and worthy of all acceptance because it is God’s word. We can join with the angels and shep-herds looking at the Lamb of God but He is also the good Shepherd. In Rom 12v2 we are told what we should do. Jer 10v1-3 tells us not to make idols. Jesus’ birth is the greatest gift of all the year. He is able to keep us to the uttermost Heb 7v25 to establish Rom 16v25, to aid Heb 2v18 to subdue Phil 3v21 to keep lsa 26v3, 2Tim 1v12 and Eph 3v20.

When we think of what we were that is dead through our trespass and sins, and that we are poor, weak, failing servants, and then to think that one day He is able to present us faultless be-fore the Throne of grace (unmerited), that is something to celebrate, a couple of crackers to feast on Jude 24v25 and 1 John 3v2-3. Just to let you know the hip operation was a great suc-cess. I now need to get fit. The Lord willing of course I should be back in service. “A gift must be accepted or it is only a present”. Much love as always. God bless you all Mick

Prophecy Fulfilled
The gospels speak much of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and we are invited to remember in the communion His great sacrifice for us all. Very little is said of celebrating and remembering His birth. The gospels give us an account of His lowly birth to a virgin called Mary, she was the handmaid of the Lord when she willingly allowed the Holy Spirit to conceive in her the Christ child. So do we worship a baby? of course not because Jesus grew up into manhood. The apostle John said in his letters that our belief is that Christ came in the flesh and he testified that he was able to touch and see him 1John 1vrs 1-4. It is good to remember that Jesus came to fulfil the old testament prophecies in His first advent. He has promised that He will return to this earth on His second advent. We are much closer now to His return, are we living ready? I always enjoy Christmas time especially with my family and worshipping the Lord with those who love Him. The greatest gift we can receive is the gift of salvation purchased through His shed blood and the future hope of eternal life with our beloved Lord. May the Lord bless and keep you in His abundant care. Roy.

Prayer
We all know how important prayer is.
Thank you all for your continued prayers.
Can you please update us, if you no longer want to be on the prayer clock. Also, if would like a prayer slot, of 15 minutes a day, please get in touch.
Hebrews 4: 15-16; Romans 8: 26-27; Mark 11:24;
Blessing to you all, Dave & Lin Sibley

True Meaning of Christmas
As Christmas approaches, we can become overwhelmed with present buying, writing Christmas cards, and all the preparation for Christmas. Adverts that start so early on the television, even so much that is going on at Church. Years ago, when I became like that my Mother prayed for me to have peace, which I did have, and now she is no longer with us, each year I remember that and pray for peace from those feelings and remember the true meaning of Christmas, that a baby was born called Jesus who came into the world and would later die on a cross to save us from our sins. It is also good to pray for Ministers and leaders of the Church, as this is one of their busiest times of the year. Heather.

Saviour of the World
Many may have heard of the ship called the Khian Sea from the year 1986. At the time the city of Philadelphia had a sanitation strike. The result meant that there would be a sudden buildup of refuse that could and would mount up into an enormous toxic mess. The solution that was decided upon was that a ship called the Khian Sea which was a Liberian cargo vessel which was loaded up with all of this toxic waste so that it could be taken away and deposited to another location. The problem was that there was no other country that was willing to allow the ship into their waters and offload the putrid cargo. I think we can understand why.
The ship did release 4,00 tons of toxic ash near Haiti under the guise of it being fertilizer but the ship went on its way before the authorities of that country found out its real origin. The ship continued to search for other locations while renaming the ship to Felicia and then later the Pelicano.
What if we see this world as beautiful as it was created to be, but yet a as a whirling sphere of our toxic sin. We know it to be true The world will just keep moving the toxic waste around and fulfil its own solutions of humanism, religion, philosophy, revolutions etc. but there will never be any shore that will be able to carry the burden of dealing with our insurmountable burden. Yet much of mankind has continued to ignore and reject the one who came to take that burden for us.
We can also apply this burden to each of us individually in that we carry that load of toxic refuse and we can pour all sorts of remedies into our lives to alleviate that burden and to fulfil the longings of the heart for something that we cannot attain. Thank the Lord that he has visited us with his salvation when love entered our world in human likeness as a tender baby, lived among us and gave his life for us that we may be redeemed. He took the whole mass of our sin and removed the weight and stain of that toxic waste taking it on himself. He rose again and will return to receive his people. Thank God for Christmas, , thank God for the cross, thank God for Jesus. NV.

Thank you to all who support this outreach with prayer and finance, we could not do this without you.
Every blessing from the team & trustees.