Post by JEM on Jan 19, 2022 14:11:40 GMT
TODAY JAN 18 BEGINS THE
WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
Every morning I sing a hymn, sometimes several, and have exhausted several books over the years. The one today was from Mission Praise, No. 972.
Yours for ever! God of love,
hear us from Your throne above,
Yours for ever may we be,
here and in eternity.
Yours for ever LORD of life,
shield us through our earthly strife;
You the life, the truth, the way,
guide us to the realms of day.
Yours for ever! O how blessed
they who find in You their rest!
Saviour, Guardian, Heavenly Friend,
O defend us to the end.
Yours for ever! Shepherd keep
us your frail and trembling sheep:
safe alone beneath Your care.
let us all Your goodness share.
Yours for ever! You our guide,
all our wants by You supplied,
all our sins by You forgiven,
lead us, Lord, from earth to Heaven.
This hymn originally being “Thine for Ever God of love”, was written by Mary Fawler Maude [nee Hooper] at the age of 28 for her Sunday School class at St Thomas’s Church, Newport, Isle of Wight. [ illustrated here ] This hymn was published prefacing a little book “Twelve letters on Confirmation by a Sunday School Teacher”. Undiscovered for 10 years it was published without her knowing in “Hymns Ancient and Modern”.
In her teens Mary wrote 3 books published by S.P.C.K. She married Rev Joseph Maude, vicar of St Thomas’s Newport IOW and later at Chirk. She conducted classes for colliers and when widowed, classes for young men, at Overton. She reached a great age, 96 in 1913 and when dying, young men of her class sang at her door this hymn, followed by “Will your anchor hold” She sent out to them a message “Tell them, it does not fail. It holds”. Two lines of this hymn appear on her memorial tablet at Overton Church. Just a reminder that we all have gifts and abilities to share in the work of building the Church.
When I was 18 I fell out with the new minister in that he did not appear to preach the same Gospel I had learned from the one who preceded him.
I ended up with both of them as friends. The Deacons trying to diffuse the situation at the meeting with me and at the next Church Meeting sang “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ OUR LORD”
This week members our Lighthouse Prayer Ministry have supplied a Bike and a Study Bible to a pastor of a village church in Malawi, supplied 250 Bibles for new converts to an evangelist in Nigeria and provided 20 audio Bibles in Urdu for illiterate brick makers at a kiln in Pakistan. My reading today was Acts 3 when the Church grew from 120 in Jerusalem to over 3000 in a week in which the Holy Spirit had come upon the 120 with power and they tumbled out into the streets at 9 in the morning speaking many tongues - not the gift of tongues sometimes called the language of Heaven, unintelligible to anyone other than someone who exercises the gift of interpretation, but the languages understood by the cosmopolitan crowd at Jerusalem where Jews gathered for the Festival from all over Palestine and the countries of Asia Minor and North Africa, each hearing the Good News of Salvation in their own language. As Baptists we may be members of a small denomination in UK of about 150,000, or worldwide of 42 million, but we are part of a worldwide family assembly of all Christians from many lands, languages and lives linked also with the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
I come from a family rooted in the Church of England in Hampshire, Sussex and Bedfordshire, the Methodists in Hertfordshire, the Baptists in Cambridge, and the Salvation Army in Linton. I have preached in congregations of 9 denominations and assisted Christians overseas in a wide variety of communions including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Ethiopian Apostolic, Lutheran, and Messianic Jews,
I am very conscious of the variety and diversity of Christians which is the Church’s strength. One of the disciples told Jesus one day that there is a man preaching what you teach who is not of our group. The response from Jesus was “If he is for us he isn’t against us”. Jesus taught us to love everyone, with no exceptions even if they don’t love us back. we are part of a worldwide family assembly of all Christians from many lands, languages and lives linked also with the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
Every morning I sing a hymn, sometimes several, and have exhausted several books over the years. The one today was from Mission Praise, No. 972.
Yours for ever! God of love,
hear us from Your throne above,
Yours for ever may we be,
here and in eternity.
Yours for ever LORD of life,
shield us through our earthly strife;
You the life, the truth, the way,
guide us to the realms of day.
Yours for ever! O how blessed
they who find in You their rest!
Saviour, Guardian, Heavenly Friend,
O defend us to the end.
Yours for ever! Shepherd keep
us your frail and trembling sheep:
safe alone beneath Your care.
let us all Your goodness share.
Yours for ever! You our guide,
all our wants by You supplied,
all our sins by You forgiven,
lead us, Lord, from earth to Heaven.
This hymn originally being “Thine for Ever God of love”, was written by Mary Fawler Maude [nee Hooper] at the age of 28 for her Sunday School class at St Thomas’s Church, Newport, Isle of Wight. [ illustrated here ] This hymn was published prefacing a little book “Twelve letters on Confirmation by a Sunday School Teacher”. Undiscovered for 10 years it was published without her knowing in “Hymns Ancient and Modern”.
In her teens Mary wrote 3 books published by S.P.C.K. She married Rev Joseph Maude, vicar of St Thomas’s Newport IOW and later at Chirk. She conducted classes for colliers and when widowed, classes for young men, at Overton. She reached a great age, 96 in 1913 and when dying, young men of her class sang at her door this hymn, followed by “Will your anchor hold” She sent out to them a message “Tell them, it does not fail. It holds”. Two lines of this hymn appear on her memorial tablet at Overton Church. Just a reminder that we all have gifts and abilities to share in the work of building the Church.
When I was 18 I fell out with the new minister in that he did not appear to preach the same Gospel I had learned from the one who preceded him.
I ended up with both of them as friends. The Deacons trying to diffuse the situation at the meeting with me and at the next Church Meeting sang “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ OUR LORD”
This week members our Lighthouse Prayer Ministry have supplied a Bike and a Study Bible to a pastor of a village church in Malawi, supplied 250 Bibles for new converts to an evangelist in Nigeria and provided 20 audio Bibles in Urdu for illiterate brick makers at a kiln in Pakistan. My reading today was Acts 3 when the Church grew from 120 in Jerusalem to over 3000 in a week in which the Holy Spirit had come upon the 120 with power and they tumbled out into the streets at 9 in the morning speaking many tongues - not the gift of tongues sometimes called the language of Heaven, unintelligible to anyone other than someone who exercises the gift of interpretation, but the languages understood by the cosmopolitan crowd at Jerusalem where Jews gathered for the Festival from all over Palestine and the countries of Asia Minor and North Africa, each hearing the Good News of Salvation in their own language. As Baptists we may be members of a small denomination in UK of about 150,000, or worldwide of 42 million, but we are part of a worldwide family assembly of all Christians from many lands, languages and lives linked also with the Church Triumphant in Heaven.
I come from a family rooted in the Church of England in Hampshire, Sussex and Bedfordshire, the Methodists in Hertfordshire, the Baptists in Cambridge, and the Salvation Army in Linton. I have preached in congregations of 9 denominations and assisted Christians overseas in a wide variety of communions including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Ethiopian Apostolic, Lutheran, and Messianic Jews,
I am very conscious of the variety and diversity of Christians which is the Church’s strength. One of the disciples told Jesus one day that there is a man preaching what you teach who is not of our group. The response from Jesus was “If he is for us he isn’t against us”. Jesus taught us to love everyone, with no exceptions even if they don’t love us back. we are part of a worldwide family assembly of all Christians from many lands, languages and lives linked also with the Church Triumphant in Heaven.