No.24 - O Great God

Marvelling at God's greatness, sharing the hope of the resurrection and rejoicing in God.

Verse of the Week

'“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.'

Isaiah 40:25-26

There are billions and billions and billions of stars, and God knows them by name! How glorious is the Lord our God. The stars are his creation, what an incredible reminder of God's great power, might and strength. I have found wondering at God's greatness to be a wonderful way to stir up my heart to desire to praise him. When I am tempted to worry, complain or despair this is what I want to set my mind on. Think about just how small our worries, annoyances and sadnesses are compared to God. Yes, we should mourn and share our feelings with God in prayer, but I don't want to let anything stop me from praising God. No matter what we are going through, God is worthy of our praise and so I can rejoice in his glory.

Encouragements

It has been such a joy this week to get to spend time seeing God's greatness more clearly. I attended my Cambridge Bible course's open day where a guest speaker came and gave four lectures on '12 things God can't do'. There were so many encouragements! One would be that God cannot change. This is wonderful for hundreds of reasons but the one that first came into my mind is that he will stay perfect forever! Forever perfectly patient, kind, loving, just, good and gracious.

This week, I got to lead my life group's bible study for the first time. It was such a privilege to help people see more of the hope of the resurrection. There is something wonderful about God's people gathering together to help each other understand more of God's word and be changed by it.

Praise the Lord; I seem to have been more joyful over the last few days. There are lots of things this could be linked to, but one that comes to mind is that I have been listening to more sermons in my free time. These have been greatly encouraging as the preachers I have been listening to, mainly John Piper, are so often seeking to help us enjoy God more.

A Little Update

Here are a few of the things we've been up to and some of what we've got coming up.

The Last Week

• Prepared for - TEAM Talk, Bible studies, Easter event

• Wednesday - TEAM open teaching day on - 'Things God can't do'

• Thursday - Led our Life group bible study

• Friday - Ran a mid-day bible study group

• Friday - Met with some church members to study the Westminster Confession of Faith

• Friday - Attended a Church music band leaders meeting

• Saturday - Met to study a Christian book

The Next Few Weeks

• Life group, Mid-day bible study, TEAM bible course

• 26th March - Giving a Talk at my Cambridge bible course

• 3rd-5th April - Attending a Bible study Training Conference

• 6th April - Helping lead sung worship at church

• 6th April - Giving a talk on Mark at our Church's Children's group

• 6th April - Giving a talk at an evangelistic church youth event

• 12th April - Meeting up to study a Christian book with church family

• 19th April - Helping to run our Church Easter event

• 14th May - Attending a Church Trustees meeting

• 18th May - Giving a talk on studying the bible at our teaching session before church (Joining The Dots Adults)

• 29th May-1st June - Attending the St Helen's 10am weekend away

• 10th-12th June - Attending a Presbyterian Christian Conference (Catalyst)

Prayer Requests

These next two weeks I will be a bit busier with preparing talks for my Cambridge course, the children on Sunday and a youth evangelistic evening, as well as helping plan our Church Easter Event.

So we would love prayer that:

God would help us to trust and rejoice in His strength and good plans.

Hopefully, this will look like not worrying over the amount of preparation I am able to do but rather enjoying the time I am able to spend working to share God's life-giving word.

We really are so grateful for your love, prayers and support. You are such an encouragement! God bless :)

Joshua & Luci.

P.S. - If you want to hear more about how I've been delighted by Christ over the last week, including the content from my Bible course open day on '12 things God can't do' feel free to listen to the video below. I found it really encouraging to think back over the week and delight in all the different things I've learned about God. I hope you may find it encouraging to :)

ere was so much amazing information from my Bible course this week I decided to create different length summaries, so you can have as much or as little content as you have time for :)

TEAM Bible Course Notes - Shortest

Understanding what God’s can’t do

can help us understand more of who God is

• God can’t learn

• God can’t be surprised

• God can’t change his mind

• God can’t been seen

• God can’t bare to look at evil

• God can’t change

• God can’t suffer

• God can’t be lonely

• God can’t die

• God can’t deny the good

• God can’t deny the truth

• God can’t deny himself

  
  

TEAM Bible Course Notes - Shorter

TEAM Bible Course Notes - Longer

Love and prayers