Hello everyone

WEEK  3

1  HELP–Send your Holy Spirit

In order to live the way of life we see in Jesus, we need help. We can’t do it on our own. We can’t manage in our own strength. Who can we help today by our prayers and example?

As the Church waits to celebrate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, let’s remember that Jesus calls the Spirit ‘helper’.

God knows we can’t manage on our own. Of course, we can’t. After all, we are made for community with God and with each other. Jesus makes this possible by uniting our humanity with God in his own person. The Spirit is the spirit of Jesus, helping us become like Jesus and uniting us to God. All we need to do is let go of the pride that puts self-first and cuts us off from God, and in the end from everyone else as well. Overcoming God, make me new in the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I am meant to be. And today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those who have drifted from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who are trapped by fear and guilt. Set us free, God. Set me free to be myself. Free to help others.

PRAYER

Overcoming God, make me new in the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I am meant to be. And today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those who have drifted from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who are trapped by fear and guilt. Set me free, God. Set me free to be myself God, make me new in the Spirit of Jesus so that I can truly become the person I am meant to be. And today may your Spirt help me help others, especially those who have drifted from your way, or who find it impossible to believe, or who are trapped by fear and guilt. Set me free, God. Set me free to be myself. Free to help others.

READINGS

Jesus said, “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14. 25-26)  

Jesus said, “ This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.   You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15. 12-14)

2–  Adore — Ambassadors for Love

The greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is love. We are most like Jesus when we love and adore each other, and when we love and adore the world.

Love is not just romantic love. It is the complete self-giving that we see in Jesus. This is the love the world needs if we are to navigate a way though the huge challenges we face.

Following Jesus, returning to the life of his Church, means being part of this great love affair. We become God’s agents of change, God’s ambassadors for love in the world.

However small or fragile your faith is, most of us have strong feelings of love. They are from God. Use this love to change the world. One heart at a time.

PRAYER

Quickening God, fan the embers of my little faith. Help me see that the love I feel for those I love is from you. It shows me that you are real, that you are love itself. Be my friend. And today, draw me back into the fellowship of your church and help others, who also long for love and acceptance, to find it in Jesus, the one who lays down his life for his friends.

3– CELEBRATE –Give us our daily bread

On the night before he died, Jesus had a meal with his friends. Breaking bread and sharing wine, he said they were his body and blood. He was giving them a way of understanding what his death and resurrection would mean. He was also giving us, for all time, a way of being nourished by his risen life.

It is hard to be a Christian on your own. You cut yourself off from this food and drink. And because faith is not a private thing, but a way of life lived in community, then we need to nurture this life in celebration with each other. This is what the church is: the bunch of men and women who know how much they need each other and need God. Join us. We need you.

PRAYER

Bountiful God, feed me with the bread of heaven, and give me today the things I need for today and save me from wanting more than my share. There are so many people who are hungry for love and thirsting for peace. Help me to help others find their place at your table.

READING

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10. 16-17)

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4. V 11)

KEEP SAFE

 – KEEP ON PRAYING 

Peter

PS  In earnest prayer pray for Bolton and India in the grip of variant strains of the Covid Virus.

Pray for or own country as it relaxes the guidelines in selected areas of our life together.

We ask that people will exercise due caution and keep the world around them safe.