TO SEEK AND TO SAVE

This Sunday (01.22), Pastor Duke is preaching from Luke 19:1-10, the story of Zaccheus.
As we look at this familiar story, may our hearts remember the great price paid for our sin. JESUS CHRIST!
May our joy be found in HIM!

"The deeper I go into the gospel, the more I comprehend and confess aloud the depth of my sinfulness. A gruesome death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceedingly sinful and unable to appease a holy God. Consequently, whenever I consider the necessity and manner of His death, along with the love and selflessnes behind it, I am laid bare and utterly exposed for the sinner I am." Gospel Primer (p. 33)

Refresh and Nurturing a culture of evangelism

Please be praying for the teens as they are on their Refresh 2012 winter retreat.

A Gospel Primer - A Heart for the Lost

The more I rehearse and exult in gospel truths, the more there develops within me a corresponding burden for non-Christians to enter into such blessings.

Pray that as Emmanuel Baptist Church remembers and rehearses God's amazing grace that we would grow in our desire to share this blessing with those who are lost.

Whose strength am in depending upon?

In light of Pastor Duke's sermon "Is a Good life Good Enough?" let us pray that we would remember our hope is in the LORD.
It is because of Jesuus Christ that we are righteousness.
We need to come before in prayer and in life with humility.
We are sinners coming before holy, merciful God who has chosen to justify and sanctify us through Jesus Christ.

May we as individual believers and as a church make much of Jesus!

Is a Good Life Good Enough?

The passage Pastor Duke is preaching from this week is Luke 18:9-14.

Luke 18:9 sets the context of the passage:
"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:"

God,
We want our confidence to be in you and you alone.
Show us those areas in our lives and our church where we are trusting in our own righteousness.
We want to make much of Jesus Christ.

Amen

Prayer resources

Don't forget to purchase a copy of the Gospel Primer

Here is another resource Pastor Duke has mentioned
The Valley of Vision. Below is a song based on the Valley of Vision prayer.

Christmas Benefit Concert prayer items

Pray for the ministries the concert will help...
  - The Pregnancy Center of Toledo
  - My Father's House in Haiti.

Pray that those who attend the concert will clearly hear the truth of Christmas as it is shared in word and song.

Pray that those who are participating will glorify God with their gifts and talents.

Released from the burden of having to maintain my righteous standing with God, I quickly found that I had enormous amounts of passion to put into growing in holiness and ministering God’s amazing grace to other people.  I had never had such energy available for ministry before, because so much of it was consumed with tending to my standing before God.  I also found the grace of the gospel producing in me a huge passion to love and obey God.  In moments of temptation, I enjoyed saying to myself “You know, I can commit this sin, and God’s grace would abound to me all the more as He maintains my justified status…But it is precisely for this reason that I choose not to commit this sin!”

The Gospel Primer (p. 96)

LORD, God,

I want to live a life that is built upon the finished work of Jesus Christ.  Help me to be strengthened by you and not motivated by guilt. 

Especially during this time of the year, help me to live in the joy of Christ's righteousness and not the bitterness of self-righteousness.

AMEN.