Now that December has arrived, every week looks to be a busy week! To keep you up-to-date, here’s a summary of what’s happening this week at GPCC:

1. Tomorrow’s services (6th December) are at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. The family service is looking at the theme of ‘Christ in Christmas’, looking at how Christ is central not only to Christmas but to the whole Bible! Come and find out how Christ’s coming was prophesied in the Old Testament and how God’s plan of salvation has been worked out from the foundation of the world.
2. Midweek meetings will be as usual, with youth club on Monday (6.30-8 p.m.) and the Bible study on Thursday at 7.30 p.m. Don’t forget that other groups use the building during the week, so if you’re over 60 and interested in fitness, come along to the Keep Fit class on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Slimming World also meets on Thursdays at 9 a.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Badminton will be on Friday at 7 p.m. and the coffee morning will be on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 12 noon.
3. The Parent & Toddler Christmas Party will be on Friday 11th December at 9.30 a.m. We’re looking forward to a great time with games, food and presents!
4. The Christmas market is on this Friday (11th December) from 4-8 p.m. and we will be serving refreshments and doing craft activities in the community hall. Come and get Christmas decorations and enjoy home baking and don’t forget you can get presents wrapped for just 10p per parcel! All monies raised will go to the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal to help local families in need.
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6. The ‘Churches Together’ Carol Service will be on Friday 11th December at 6 p.m. This will be an outdoor carol service, so come wrapped up and ready to sing of Christ’s birth!

Please pray for all these services and for hearts to be touched by the message of Christmas. God has come to earth and we have a new song of praise and joy to sing!

Read Ps 119:32-39.

Staying the course, finishing the race of life, is an essential part of Christian discipleship. Paul used the metaphor of a race to describe life (see 1 Cor 9:24-27, 1 Tim 6:11-16, 2 Tim 4:7-8), and the writer to the Hebrews urges us to ‘run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’ (Heb 12:1) Life is not a sprint, but a long-distance race which requires endurance and persistence. ‘God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course.’ (Ps 119:33, The Message)

We start out on the Christian life through repentance (see Ps 120) and continue the journey through obedience. The psalmist prays for understanding, recognising that choices have to be made on a daily basis (‘turn my eyes away from worthless things’ Ps 119:37; ‘turn my heart toward Your statutes and not toward selfish gain.’ Ps 119:36)

Obedience is made up of daily choices: ‘my whole life one long obedient response.’ (Ps 119:35, The Message) Friedrich Nietzsche wrote ‘the essential thing in heaven and earth is… that there should be a long obedience in the same direction: there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something that has made life worth living.’ When we’re younger, we tend to obey sporadically, ‘when we feel like it,’ lacking consistency and doggedness in our lives. Obedience in the same direction requires a commitment to God, an acknowledgment of His ultimate goodness (‘Your laws are good’ Ps 119:39) and a tilting of heart and will towards His ways. Mary’s initial obedience to the angel’s message (Luke 1:38) was crucial, but it’s just as important to finish well as it is to start well.

Read Psalm 119:25-31.

The best way to read the Bible (and, indeed, to live life) is prayerfully. We come to this book for daily guidance because we believe not only that God speaks through it, but that He speaks to us. As we approach its pages, our hearts need to be in communion with God, asking ‘What do You want to say to me today?’

The psalmist does not love the word in isolation to God; rather, he understands the connection between the word and his own life (‘Preserve my life according to Your word’ Ps 119:25) and the word and God. He reads in order to understand, in order to obey.

‘Let me understand the teaching of Your precepts; then I will meditate on Your wonders.’ (Ps 119:27) There is a need to slow down and ‘ponder anew what the Almighty can do/ If with His love He befriend thee.’ (Joachim Neander/ Cathering Wirksworth).

Ps 119 is not only filled with truth about God’s Word but also gives us model prayers for us to echo:

• ‘Preserve my life according to Your word’ (Ps 119:25);
• ‘Teach me Your decrees’ (Ps 119:26);
• ‘Let me understand the teaching of Your precepts’ (Ps 119:27);
• ‘Strengthen me according to Your word’ (Ps 119:28)’
• ‘Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through Your law’ (Ps 119:29);
• ‘Do not let me be put to shame.’ (Ps 119:31)

Often, we don’t know how to pray, but this psalm acts like a key, opening a locked door to a new world of prayer. Prayer connects our lives and our understanding to the bigger world and infinite resources of God. The psalmist prays not in isolation, recounting his ways, with God as a remote therapist, but in connection with the teaching of God’s words, having, therefore, a solid foundation on which to build. Prayer that is in line with God’s Word will always see answers (see John 14:13-14, 1 John 5:14-15).

Christmas starts with Christ! As we are involved in different ways of reaching out to people at this time of year, pray for hearts to be opened and people to come to faith. Christmas can be a very lonely time for people, especially those who have been bereaved this year, and the stresses it can bring (including family problems and financial issues) can overshadow many people’s lives. Pray that the reality of Christ’s presence and hope that He brings will be known by many people at this time.

Pray for:

• all the different forms of outreach, including the Monday youth club, the Parent & Toddler group (with the Christmas Party on 11^th December) and coffee mornings
• Goldthorpe Christmas Market on Friday 11^th December and our outreach at this event
• the ‘Churches Together’ outdoor carol service on Friday 11^th December at 6 p.m.
• all the church services in December, especially the carol service at Cherry Tree Court (13^th December) and the carol service at Market Street (20^th December)
• the work of the Salvation Army at this time and our involvement in their Christmas Appeal
• the Christmas booklets which will be distributed to primary schoolchildren by different local churches

‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:14)

Instead of walking with a disconsolate slump to our shoulders,

Eyes gazing at the puddles,

Miserable winter weather matched by miserable moods,

Hunched shoulders,

Hoods pulled up to keep off the driving rain,

Hurrying forwards into tomorrow,

Full of haste but lacking purpose,

Full of zeal but lacking joy…

We didn’t stop to put on the whole armour of God this morning:

Too preoccupied to pause,

Too laden down with our own burdens

To relish the thought of additional weights on us,

Failing to realise Your yoke is easy and Your burden light…

Instead of this, if we stop to shed the load of care we carry

And stretch to put on Your armour,

Our posture is changed entirely.

Shoulders back, back straight,

Neck muscles employed, head lifted.

Look up!

Your redemption draws near!

Help is on its way!

See the sunlight filtering from those grey clouds,

Live as children of the light.

Loved.

Protected.

Cared for.

You, O Lord, are a shield about us,

Our glory, the lifter of our heads.

You, O Lord, fight for us,

Our deliverer, the Captain of the Lord’s Army.

My I, a willing foot soldier,

March forth with a spring in my step,

A smile on my face,

Hope in my heart,

And a song on my lips,

For God has come to earth

And nothing will ever be the same again.

(Luke 21:28, Eph 6:10,13, Col 3:1-2, Ps 3:3)

Read Psalm 119:17-24.

Countless people read the Bible without ever being transformed by it, because they approach the task with purely human understanding. They put themselves in authority over it, assuming they can read and study it as they would read and study any other book. Since God’s wisdom is entirely different to human wisdom (1 Cor 1:18-25), this approach may yield academic understanding but does not take us far in our journey towards God.

Ps 119:18 says ‘open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law.’ Without illumination from above, the Bible can be baffling and bewildering. When, however, our eyes are opened to its truths (a process described in 2 Cor 4:1-5 and 1 Cor 2:6-16), we are ‘consumed with longing for Your laws at all times.’ (Ps 119:20) We realise an eternal perspective is necessary (being strangers on earth, Ps 119:19). We understand God’s ultimate justice (Ps 119:21, 23). It’s like looking through a corrective lens which enables us to see properly. Now we have a new counsellor (Ps 119:24), a guide on our journey of life.

The University of Oxford’s motto is ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’, the opening line of Psalm 27:1 (‘The Lord is my light.’) We need divine light if we are to travel well on our journey of life, a light provided through God’s Word (Ps 119:105) and by God’s Spirit.