Merry Christmas!!
~Ricky, Chris 3, Victoria & Yvonne And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping
watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were
terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you
good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the
town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This
will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying
in a manger.”
Luke 2:9-12
This past friday was CCF's last meeting of the year and we had a blessed time of praise and prayer. I was very blessed by the conversations that I was able to have with a few sisters, and was also very encouraged by the sharings that some of our fellow brothers and sisters had for the night. In particular, Matt's sharing about prayer and studying was a great reminder for me about the attitude of prayer and devotions. I find that during exam times, we often like to just focus our prayers on asking God for good rest and wisdom to do well. How easy it is to just rush through prayer and spend the next 10 hours studying and forgetting everything else! However, I was really reminded that we really should be striving to get through our studying because we desire to spend more time with our Lord. We shouldn't come before Him with the mind set that perhaps if we spend more time with Him, He will help us do better in school. But we should be spending time with Him simply because He deserves all the glory and honour no matter how we do in school. May it be our prayer that as exams approach that we will continue to thirst for His word, continue to praise and worship Him simply for who He is!
Praise and prayer went a little differently tonight. We still had our time of praise, and we were able to share and pray for each other - but the sharing wasn't our typical 1-on-1 sharing time. Rather, we opened up the floor to the brothers and sisters in our fellowship to share about how God has been working in their lives, and also how God has been working through CCF to touch them.
Some notes from the sharings: 1. Don't try to get your devos over quickly, so you can study; rather, get your studying over quickly so you can do your devos ~MCY 2. Doing your devos should not be something you do grudgingly - find joy in doing devos! ~EL 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3-7) ~CP 4. Take a moment to enjoy the sunset; Give praise to our creator ~YY
(n.b. or the sunrise, for the morning folks in our midst) 5. Challenge: learn something new about God every day ~CL 6. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Do you have a passion to seek God, to truly want to know him?~DW 7. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3) ~RZ
What a blessing and encouragement it is to hear from our brothers and sisters! All the honour, glory and praise be to God for his work in our fellowship. Truly, he is worthy of all our praise.
