Pro-Life Service To Stop Abortion
Speaker Rita Boatwright
January 29th 2012
Sermon by Pastor Billy Boatwright
Friday Fact: Ah,ha,ha…..Staying Alive!
Good Morning Everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week and I pray God’s favor and blessing’s over you as He is glorified in All things!
Addie had recieved a rose for Valentine’s this week. As we were driving home she was holding it and admiring it. She started talking about it and asking questions, she said can we give it water and sunshine when we get home? I told her we could give it water but that the rose would only be alive for a few days. I told her once the flower had been picked from the plant it could only last for a short time without it’s food source. She wanted to know why, so I told her that’s how God created it, and how their food came from the earth and that He watered them with the rain and gave them sunshine to live. That’s when the Light came on and the holy spirit being to minister to me with the Word. That is how we stay alive, we stay on The Vine where our food and water source is. God and His Word are our life support, without it we will spiritually die. Just like when the flower is plucked from the vine, eventually it will die. It may even stay pretty and healthy looking for days but then it begins to lose it’s color it also beings to wilt and the petals start to fall off. If we don’t stay on the Vine we in the same way start to die, our light grows dim, we begin to wilt away, we bear no fruit. But God says “remain in me, as I also remain in you”. If we remain with God we will stay alive, He may have to prune away some thing’s they may cause harm but we will survive. I thank God for this important lesson in life. I want the world to see something different about me, I don’t want them to see Cathy, I want them to see God. I want them to know Who He Is, I want to be the branch that is producing good, godly and wholesome fruit. Pray with me.
Heavenly Father, I draw my strength from You and on You I rely. Your are my Bread of Life and I love drinking from the Fountain of Living Water. Dear God help me stay connected to the source of my strength and that is You, the True Vine. When I am weak, I feed from You. When I am weary and dry, You are a refreshing drink. Like a flower reaching toward the sunshine to stay healthy and alive, I reach towards the Son Who gives me life. I love You Lord, help me blossom for You for the rest of my days in Jesus Name. Amen.
I leave you with a beautiful passage from the Word of God. I pray you are blessed and please feel free to share and may God be glorified!
In Christ Love,
Cathy Newton
John 15
The Vine and the Branches
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
January 15th 2012
Sermon by Pastor Billy Boatwright
Friday Fact: Follow Through!
Good Afternoon. I hope you all had a good week and I pray God bless and favor you as He is glorified in all things. My fact came from two words I heard on my way home today. “follow through”.
Too many times I think we get on the verge of a break through and we give in to lies of the enemy. We hear in our minds that’s never going to happen, or how long to you have to wait for that thing God promised you, what about that lost loved one getting saved, fianances getting better, job getting better and so forth. Sometimes it’s something God has put on your heart to do and the enemy keeps asking you how are you going to do it, what will people think, what if this…..what if that? But today I believe it’s time to follow through. I read something yesterday that said “”We’re called believers because we’re supposed to believe, otherwise we’d be called “try-ers.”
Why do we let the enemy become louder than God’s truths? Use that shield of faith, cover that mind with the helmet of salvation, tighten up that belt of truth, keep those shoes of peace on your feet, never lay that sword down! I truly believe we are in the last days, it’s time to follow though with some action behind our faith. I want to see souls saved, healings, delieverances and miracles everywhere, I will not see those things if I give up everytime I don’t see what I think I should see or feel how I think I should feel, it’s all about Him and His truths! I believe them and I rely on them it’s time to start acting like it and press on and press through. That discouragment your going through one day may be someone elses encouagement, that hurt you are bearing may one day be someone’s healing, that regret you are holding on may one day be someone’s breakthrough, so what I’m saying is you may never see the end result but if you follow through God we bring victory. You know why I say you may never see the end result, because my daddy followed through on God’s promise that I would be saved, he never gave up laying himself before the Lord weeping for my soul. My dad died before I got saved but I know God has let him know that a prayer was answered. It was one of those hopes of things he could not see but he had the faith to believe it was coming to pass. I encouage you friend to “follow through”, victory is coming! I leave you with encouraging words from the Truth of God. I pray you were blessed and please feel free to share that God may be glorified.
2 Corinthians 4 NLT
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.[b] This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”[c] 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus,[d] will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are[e] being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
In love,
Cathy Newton
Friday Fact: BAM!
Good Afternoon! I’m a little late with my Fact today but better to wait on God than to do it without Him! I hope you all had a good week and I pray God bless and favor you as He is glorified in ALL things. I believe God has me in a teaching moment and those can be pretty tough but I glady and humbly accept if this will move me closer to Him. I ask God to show me where I needed to improve, and oh boy has He. I’ve been doing a love challenge this week and I thought since I’ve done several studies and even wrote some Friday Facts about love that I was all good, boy was I wrong! God is showing me where I’m lacking and it’s pretty painful learning but I believe if I learn and really walk in what He is teaching me only good will come of it. See I asked God to help me to be a “true” worshipper and I believe He stopped me right in my pursuit (BAM) and let me know something has to take place before I make it there. I need to learn about “true” love first.
Now about “true worship”, here is what Jesus tells the Samartian woman at the well.
John 4:22: You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
What spoke to me here is “true worshippers” are the kind the Father seeks, He is looking for truth. It follows by saying God is spirit, and “His” worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. If we are to worship in truth we need to really know His truths. We can’t think that we know them or hope that we know them, we need to know that we know them! This is where I will tie it together, in order for God to do the thing in me I asked for, I have to know His truths. This is my desire to become a “true worshipper” but I need to find “true love” first. I thought I knew all about the love God wants us to walk in but there was more to it. I have to get to a place where I recognize and acknowledge the things I need to change in my life before God can bless me with what I desire. Is your ministry suffering, or maybe you feel like the gifts you were given somehow are not in operation like they were before, do you feel like you are getting no where in your service for God? We all need soul searching at times and I’m in one of those times.
I believe I am a willing vessel for God to use, but is my vessel ready for full operations. I’m asking God to show me where I need to be and He is showing me. My prayer for each of us today is that we ask God to show us things that are standing in the way of our hopes and desires. It may be something we think we already know or something we think we are already doing but unless we are doing it like His word says, it can not accomplish one thing. It’s time to really study and ask God to reveal His truth to us if we really want to be about His business, accompshing the mission we were told to do and that is telling about Jesus. I don’t want to just tell about Him I want to show others Who He Is.
Ask God for that (BAM), what is it I need to do before I can get to here or there or recieve this or that. If you are wondering why I used “BAM” here’s a clear defintion.
BAM-: a sudden loud noise —often used interjectionally to indicate. God was wanting my attention so “BAM” He gave it to me plain. I pray you have been blessed and feel free to share with someone where God may be glorified. Love you all.
In Christ,
Cathy Newton
Friday Fact: Help me rediscover You!
Good Morning Everyone. I hope you all had a blessed week and I pray God bless and highly favor you as He is glorified in all things. I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating our Savior and let’s continue to celebrate Him daily. Please feel free to share with others. May God’s love abound in You.
I was drivng to the store the other night and the message on a church sign got my attention and has stayed with me since. I may not quote it word for word but it said something about “come and rediscover God’s word in 2012.” I had been reading some of the Old Testament mixed with the Book of Revelation and how it talked about God’s people turning away from Him and what that led to and how they were called to repent and come back to God. A scripture that really touched me was in Revelation 2.
1 “To the angel[a] of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Here we see that God acknowledges the good things being done. It seems as though this church is doing all it supposed to but on down it states there was “one” thing against them.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
This “one” thing was going to cause alot of problems. They had forsaken their first love, it says consider how “far” you have fallen.
I was searching scripture about rediscovering God’s word when I came upon the story of Josiah. I encourage you to read it and be blessed. Josiah became King at age eight. Josiah loved God, he stirred up some things, torn down the idols the people had set in place, started working and repairing the Lord’s temple that had been neglected. While the temple was being repaired and restored, they came across the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given to Moses. They laid the Book before King Josiah and as it was being read, he tore his robe. He discovered that the people were far from God and His holy Word. Here is what he said to the people.
2 Chronicles 34:21 Great is the LORD’s anger that is poured out on us because those who have gone before us have not kept the word of the LORD; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written in this book.”
I believe it grieved Josiah’s heart that God’s people were far from the God he loved,feared and reveranced. It grieved him that the Word had been covered by the sin and desires of the flesh. The people had fallen far from the covenant with God, it concerned him that they were leading others into the same destructive practices because God’s word had been forgotten.
If we asked God to search every corner of our heart, what would it reveal? How are we leading those coming up behind us. Are we just speaking God’s truths or are we living and breathing His truths? Are we in need of rediscovering His truths? Do we need to tear our clothes, humble ourselves and repent? Will God find us at the altar of His grace and mercy, with repentant hearts seeking His will and way for our lives as we close out this year and begin a new one?
27 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD.
Will we be responsive to the servants of God in the pulpits and other places calling for us to repent and commit our ways and will to the Lord? Will we hear these truths and put them into practice? I want God to find me at the altar pouring out my heart to Him, seeking to be in His will.
Proverbs 13:6 says Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He WILL establish your plans.
I would like to close in prayer, join me if you will.
Heavenly Father, we come to You with humbled spirits and hearts and ask You to search us and know our ways and thoughts, reveal to us the things we need to repent of and turn from as we seek to rediscover Your truths. God, help us to leave a solid foundation of Your truths to those coming up behind us. Let us not only speak of those Truths but live and breathe them. Help us Oh Lord, return to our first love, let the fire burn from deep inside and the desire to do Your will be renewed within us. Let us commit everything we do to You so our plans will be established through You. God, I want the Light in me to shine brighter, the fire to burn hotter, the passion for You to become deeper and more intimate than ever before. All these things we ask in Your holy, precious Name. Amen!
Happy New Year to all and may God richly bless You as you commit whatever you do this year to Him!
In love,
Cathy Newton
