July 31

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Wherever there is faith, there is desire; and as faith embraces heavenly realities, desire embraces that of which faith testifies. Now as the soul is wrought upon by a divine power, and faith is drawn forth into blessed exercise upon the promises of which it is persuaded and which it embraces, desire is kindled for their enjoyment.

True religion is not a burdensome, painful, melancholy, wearisome, and toilsome task or employment as many think. It has indeed its trials, temptations, afflictions, cutting griefs, and depressing sorrows; but it has its sweetness, its peace, its delights, and its enjoyments. And it is the sweetness that we feel, the enjoyment that we have, and the delighting ourselves in the things of God, which hold our head up and encourage us still to persevere and travel on through the wilderness.

It is not all bondage, nor distress of mind, nor sorrow of heart, nor perplexity of soul which the heirs of promise feel. There are sips and tastes, drops and crumbs, and momentary enjoyments, if not long nor lasting, yet sweet when they come, sweet while they last, and sweet in the recollection when they are gone. The Lord gives that which encourages, strengthens, comforts, and delights, and enables us to see that there is that beauty, blessedness, and glory in him which we have tasted, felt, and handled, and which we would not part with for a thousand worlds.

Glory to God, what a Saviour, we serve.Looking forward to the Lord's day, a day of preaching,singing,praying,and testifying can't wait to see all my brothers and sister's in the Lord.
Job is going well,please pray that my back continues to stay strong.We have had a lot of visitors in the last few weeks,pray that they will stay a while,and give us a chance to teach them the word of God.I want to leave you with a few good thoughts.  Bro. Larry Manuel  2Tim1:7

A man was late to church. As he rushed in the people were coming out.
He asked "Oh, is it all over?"
someone answered, "No it's just begun.
We're going out now to practice what has been preached!

"Faith in God is not just belief that God exists,
but also willingness to be controlled by His principles."

"The character of your children tomorrow
depends on what you put into their hearts today."

Praise God, we had a great day Sunday in the house of God;we had (17) in the A.M service,we had no (P.m) service due to sickness.
Keep us in your prayers.                        Admiring God
By A.W. Tozer

The dictionary says that to admire is ?to regard with wondering esteem accompanied by pleasure and delight; to look at or upon with an elevated feeling of pleasure.? According to this definition, God has few admirers among Christians today. Many are they who are grateful for His goodness in providing salvation. At Thanksgiving time the churches ring with songs of gratitude that ?all is safely gathered in.? Testimony meetings are mostly devoted to recitations of incidents where someone got into trouble and got out again in answer to prayer. To decry this would be uncharitable and unscriptural for there is much of the same thing in the Book of Psalms. It is good and right to render unto God thanksgiving for all His mercies to us. But God?s admirers, where are they? The simple truth is that worship is elementary until it begins to take on the quality of admiration. Just as long as the worshiper is engrossed with himself and his good fortune, he is a babe. We begin to grow up when our worship passes from thanksgiving to admiration. As our hearts rise to God in lofty esteem for that which He is (?I AM THAT I AM?), we begin to share a little of the selfless pleasure which is the portion of the blessed in heaven.

Accepting Christ Means Rejecting All Else
By A.W. Tozer

The notion that we enter the Christian life by an act of acceptance is true, but that is not all the truth. There is much more to it than that. Christianity involves an acceptance and a repudiation, an affirmation and a denial. And this not only at the moment of conversion but continually thereafter day by day in all the battle of life till the great conflict is over and the Christian is home from the wars. To live a life wholly positive is, fortunately, impossible. Were any man able to do such a thing it could be only for a moment. Living positively would be like inhaling continuously without exhaling. Aside from its being impossible, it would be fatal. Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation. To accept Christ it is necessary that we reject whatever is contrary to Him. This is a fact often overlooked by eager evangelists bent on getting results. Like the salesman who talks up the good points of his product and conceals its disadvantages, the badly informed soulwinner stresses the positive side of things at the expense of the negative.

A LIBEL AGAINST GOD
By A.W. Tozer

Human sin began with loss of faith in God! When our mother Eve listened to Satan's sly innuendoes against the character of God, she began to entertain a doubt of His integrity-and right there the doors were opened to the incoming of every possible evil, and darkness settled upon the world. Relationship between moral beings is by confidence, and confidence rests upon character which is a guarantee of conduct. God is a being of supreme moral excellence, possessing in infinite perfection all the qualities that constitute holy character. He deserves and invites the unreserved confidence of every moral creature, including man. Any proper relation to Him must be by confidence, that is, faith. Idolatry is the supreme sin and unbelief is the child of idolatry. Both are libels on the Most High and Most Holy. John wrote: "He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar." A God who would lie is a God without character. Repentance is a man's sincere apology for distrusting God for so long, and faith is throwing oneself upon Christ in complete confidence. Thus by faith reconciliation is achieved between God and man!

A.W.Tozer:
What is the worst enemy the church faces today? This is where a lot of unreality and unconscious hyprocrisy enters. Many are ready to say, "The liberals are our worst enemy." But the simple fact is that the average evangelical church does not have too much trouble with liberalism. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that the first five books of Moses are just myths. Nobody says that the story of creation is simply religious mythology. Nobody denies that Christ walked on the water or that He rose from the grave. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or that He isn't coming back again. Nobody denies the validity of the Scriptures. We just cannot hide behind liberalism and say that it is our worst enemy. We believe that evangelical Christians are trying to hold on to the truth given to us, the faith of our fathers, so the liberals are not our worst enemy. Neither do we have a problem with the government. People in our country can do just about whatever they please and the government pays no attention. We can hold prayer meetings all night if we want, and the government would never bother us or question us. There is no secret police breathing down our backs watching our every move. We live in a free land, and we ought to thank God every day for that privilege. The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.

A.W.Tozer:
This may sound like heresy in some quarters, but I have come to this conclusion-that there are far too many among us who have thought that they accepted Christ, but nothing has come of it within their own lives and desires and habits! This kind of philosophy in soul-winning-the idea that it is "the easiest thing in the world to accept Jesus"-permits the man or woman to accept Christ by an impulse of the mind or of the emotions. It allows us to gulp twice and sense an emotional feeling that has come over us, and then say, "I have accepted Christ." These are spiritual matters about which we must be legitimately honest and in which we must seek the discernment of the Holy Spirit. These are things about which we cannot afford to be wrong; to be wrong is still to be lost and far from God. Let us never forget that the Word of God stresses the importance of conviction and concern and repentance when it comes to conversion, spiritual regeneration, being born from above by the Spirit of God!

July 8

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1

There is not a more blessed declaration than this in the whole word of truth. It is the sweetest note sounded by the gospel trumpet, for it is the very crown of the whole jubilee. Is not condemnation the bitterest drop in the cup of trembling? the most chilling, piercing note of that terrible trumpet which sounded so long and so loud from Sinai's blazing top that all the people that were in the camp trembled? (Exod. 19:13, 16.) Condemnation is the final execution of God's righteous law, and therefore carries with it all that arms death with its sting and the grave with its terror.

The apprehension of this; the dread and fear of being banished forever from the presence of God; of being lost, and that without remedy; of sinking under the blazing indignation of him who is a consuming fire, has filled thousands of hearts with horror. And it must be so as long as the law speaks in its thunders, as long as conscience re-echoes its verdict, and as long as the wrath of God burns to the lowest hell. O the blessedness, then, of that word of grace and truth, worthy to be sounded through heaven and earth by the voice of cherubim and seraphim, "There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!"

 

July 4

"Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good." Jeremiah 32:41

God rejoices as much in saving your soul as you can rejoice in your soul being saved. Say I "as much?" His joy is infinite, and yours is finite; his the joy of God, and yours but the joy of man. Do you believe that God rejoices to save, delights in saving? Why else would he have given his dear Son? Do the angels rejoice over repenting sinners? Is there no joy then in the bosom of God to save a sinner too? How this takes us up, as it were, into the very realms of bliss, and reveals to us the wondrous character of God in his Trinity of persons and Unity of essence, that there is a rejoicing in the salvation of the Church, so that God himself, so to speak, is filled with eternal joy in the salvation of his people.

When his dear Son offered himself as a sacrifice for sin, and thus put away the transgressions and iniquities of the Church by his own blood-shedding and death, overcame death and hell, and washed us in his blood from all our filth and guilt and shame, God, so to speak; rejoiced with infinite joy in the completion of the work of his dear Son. It was the fulfillment of his eternal purposes of wisdom and grace. It was the manifestation of his glory to men and angels. It was the triumph of good over evil, of holiness over sin, of mercy over judgment, of love over enmity, of wisdom over deceit, of the counsels of God over the devices of man, and, above all, of the Son of God in his weakness over Satan in his might. It was peopling heaven with an innumerable multitude of saints by whom eternal anthems of praise should be sung to God and the Lamb. Thus we may see how the God of heaven even now rejoices with holy joy over every one whom he brings to the enjoyment of a salvation so free, so great, so glorious.

 

Hello everyone!  June was quite a month for us personally and for our church.  We as a family and church participated in the Rutland County Relay for Life.  Sandy Turco donated time and materials for our bake sale, she also made a Raggedy Ann and Andy to auction off for part of our fundraiser, we also auctioned off a Rock of Ages KJV Bible.  Thank You so much Sandy for all you do for our family and our church.  If there were more Christians like you this world it would be a brighter place.  Last Sunday, July 1,  we had 11 people in the morning service and we had 21 people in the evening service.  We had a surprise visit from our friends the Audet family.  God bless this beautiful family.  Through our witnessing at the Relay for Life, we met a lovely lady Sindee who has started joining us, she also won the Bible that was auctioned off.

Prayer List:
Robin Young - started treatment for Hep. C; she is dealing with much sickness, though her viral load is getting much lower.  Praise God!
Don Young - had a negative reaction to blood medication and has heart problems, also unemployed.
Carl De Long - arthritis, has to deal with a lot of pain on a daily basis and is an over-the-road truck driver.
Karen De Long - had a seizure last month, tests didn't show anything, has to see a neurologist.
Linda Jamieson (Pastor Larry's mom) - had to have surgery to remove a mass in her abdomen, just found out last night that the mass was cancerous.  She will be having to take chemo treatments.  She is lost and needs Jesus.
Pastor Larry Manuel - back issues, financial needs.
Sandy Turco - family and health needs
Rachel Manuel - school
Lighthouse Church - that our church will grow and be a light in this dark community, that we will serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and we will always give Him the honor and glory He so richly deserves.
Rutland City and County
USA & her leaders
Lost Family members
Chuck Ellis - found his brother dead
Jimmy Farrell - bladder cancer
Jerry Manuel - health issues
Cremer Manuel - strength to care for Jerry
Special Requests


Praise Report:
Pastor Larry got a job working for Lincare in Rutland.  Please pray his back will allow him to continue this job, it is full-time and year round.  He hasn't worked since the beginning of March.  Although, God has seen to all our needs.  Thanks be to Jesus!
Joshua Manuel started working for our neighbor weeding her yard.
Elizabeth Manuel will be getting special inserts and shoes to help her feet and we found our insurance covers it all.

Birthdays:  Joshua Manuel 7/11  &  Pastor Larry 7/21