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The Challenges of Temptation and the Gift that is forgiveness
Mark ked worship today and brought us the Word from Matthew 4 1-11. Songs included Do Not Fear, Blessed Be Your Name, My Lighthouse, This I Know (Ungizungezile).
Mark opened up by considering the idea of Jesus fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. Mark works as a chef through the day and he reflected on the fact that unlike a lot of people, food is not a big temptation or weakness for him. He can happily go right through the day without being tempted by food.
Mark reflected that some of the temptations around us can be really extreme. Mark’s temptations are much more mundane. His weakness is electronics, gadgets, computers and games like FIFA 25 even on his phone. Just to prove God has a sense of humour, someone’s phone started ringing at this point!
We are surrounded by influences through our electronic gadgetry and social media. We can use it for good, sharing what happens at church (or even recruiting town pastors) . But then there is also the temptations of buying stuff we don’t need from Ebay or Facebook Marketplace. Even worse is the temptation to post unkind comments or put people down over social media.
Mark shared that he is going to cut back on his gaming throughout Lent. He encouraged us to resist the temptations in our life and set aside that time for prayer and reflections. Spend more time with God. Mark challenged us to think about how we want to deal with temptations, how do we choose to deal with temptations, who we might want to discuss temptations with.
Mark reflected that often his temptation to buy more electronics is nipped in the bud after a simple conversation with his wife! For bigger, more difficult stuff, often God is the only one you can take the temptation and choice to. Mark reflected on the fact that the world doesn’t seem to have a focus anymore on fighting for and keeping right relationships. In his own family, his grandparents seem to be the only ones who had a lifetime relationship. The key to their success seemed to be that they talked about everything. Often that was just his grandmother putting his grandad right.
In discussing temptations, think seriously about whether or not it takes you away from God. Also don’t be afraid to ask for forgiveness if temptation sometimes wins and you make wrong choices.
Take the Land He has given you.
Abi, Yvette and Amanda led today’s service and the word today was brought by Viv Neville.
Our songs today were Be Still, How Great is Our God, O Jesus I have promised, If You Climb to the top of a mountain, Take Me To the Holy of Holies, Cornerstone, Blessed Be Your Name, I speak Jesus and Open the eyes of my heart Lord.
Deuteronomy 5 31:33 played a key part in today’s service. Viv had ended up changing what she was bring to the church today and it is powerful that two people were given exactly the same passage. Viv reflecting on the fact that Pastor Cliff Henderson from New Life had also been reflecting on the fact that over the years we all invite countless people to church for different types of community events. Do we then see those folks come to church? Not always but we continue to hope and pray that these events touch people in some way. Viv reflected that at times she had been very emotional in the hours leading up to this service. The core message today was very much around “ “Take the land he has given you”. Viv drew our attention to Daniel 12 , Go your own way, live life simply, Put distractions aside and work, pray and read your Bible. Viv talked about the fact that this is very important and she often has to turn her phone off to cut out distractions. In terms of going your own way, do you know what it is? If you do write it down, commit to it. Think about the parting of the Red Sea. God had to push the mighty waters aside so his people could continue on their path.
Viv recapped on her previous visit and message to West View Baptist Church. She highlighted the way in which John the Baptist was preparing the way of the Lord. Viv encouraged us to think about taking the Lord outside the walls of the church. Praying into every area of our lives.Viv had been helping someone battling with addiction and that person was now entering rehab. She had walked outside their home praying and covering them. She brought the situation to the Lord in praise and worship.
Viv also reflected on the fact that there are places in the community where we still cannot share the Word. Do we share our evangelistic ideas with others? Remember God often only gives us the first step, not the full map. Big and small ideas are equally important.
Do we know when God is prompting us? When something is from God the idea will come and keep coming. Every day for 6 weeks an idea that Viv had early in ministry kept coming and coming, like the roaring of a lion. It would not go away. Viv’s idea eventually came to fruition and ran for 11 years. 40 people helped to make it so. Remember though that there is a season for everything. Nehemiah had lots of obstacles to overcome in achieving his goal. He was opposed all the way but fulfilled what was needed. You will find people to help.
Viv shared her new initiative to prayer walk the whole of Hartlepool. Her and her fellow prayer walkers have divided the town into smaller areas. Through Facebook and Whatapp etc they are reaching out to supporters. There is a place for everyone who wants to help prayer walker or prayer warrior.
Viv also shared the events happening in the revival at Asbury University where students stayed in chapel after a service was supposed to conclude on 8 February 2023. 11 days later the service still continued. Mini revivals are springing up elsewhere.
Viv and her fellow prayer walkers ended up covering the Fens in cars. Like the shadow of the cloak of Jesus and the apostles, praying for the homes they pass and pause outside brings hope and healing. Pray especially for the spiritually sick. Viv then encouraged a small group to leave the church for 10 minutes to pray for the homes around us. Write down the issues and encouragement we want from and for the estate.
Messy Church
We were joined by friends from the other Baptist churches in Hartlepool and the families and children of West View for a Messy church afternoon exploring things we love and doing arts, crafts games and cake and sandwiches.
We have introduced a Prayer and Song request box inspired by James 5:13. Young Church have also produced some heart pictures using stones
Be prepared to be the answer to your own prayer
Ian and Abbey led today and the songs included God be in my Head, Light of the World, Open The Eyes of My Heart, and Love Love, Love One Another.
Yvette brought us the word from Ephesians 4 1-16.
Paul wrote this, like a lot of his letters, from prison in Rome. Yvette shared that each of us have been called and chosen by God. We should be able to see Him in the way that we treat each other, being humble , able to admit we are sometimes wrong, and giving God the glory rather than focussing on our achievements. We need to appreciate and understand where people are coming from and that they may be different to us. Relationships at work in business in marriages are not easy and take effort to make them work. . After all people are not easy to get along with. We need to pray for them, pray for their families, pray they get to know God.
But a warning , be prepared for you to be the answer to your prayers. We are all part of the Body of Christ and prayer changes us. You need to study your Bible alongside praying to make sure you are not misled. Reading a Bible without praying is also not much use. Doing both means that your prayers have power and authority
Spiritual gifts are there to help the Body of Christ. We don’t always know what our gifts are . God doesn’t always show us what our gifts are. In fact God often doesn’t tell us the full journey and the destination, He simply tells us our next step. He won’t take us further until we do what he wants now.
Yvette then showed us Psalm 68:18. And explained that a conquering king would distribute looted wealth amongst his troops. When Jesus conquered death, he shared his gift, his new wealth with us.
In Acts 2 16-19 Yvette showed that we are living in the last days between Jesus resurrection and return. Each of us has the Holy Spirit living in us. We have gifts because of this, all different and all equal to help us grow. Paul says we need to use our gifts to step out in faith.
We need to be conscious of the fact that we don’t get to be good at something until we first are given the freedom to be bad at it.
If you want God to speak to you, you need to open your Bible. When we use our gifts to encourage each other, we will be ready to take God to West View. Unity and loving and working with all the other churches will change the spiritual landscape around us. This is what the spiritual gifts are for. It’s an ongoing process to aim for unity in faith. Thankfully it’s not about what we deserve, it’s about God’s love for us and using the gifts he gave us.
Amanda thanked Yvette for her words and reminded the church that in the induction service for Fiona and our new community ministers, Linda Donaldson had also been given a message if changing landscapes.
Promoted by James 5-13, we have introduced a prayer and praise box at church . This will allow people to share items for prayer and to request their favourite songs. They can also use it to provide feedback on their experiences at church….Of course you can also do this via our website by filling in the contact us form.