Hello and welcome to the third in our series preparing for Easter ... which is now fast approaching.

We start today with a traditional hymn that meditates on the Glory of Christ's sin-atoning work on our behalf.

Let's pray ...

Father we come before you today conscious of our failures and weaknesses, and our need of your mercy and forgiveness.

Please give us a large and clear understanding of the extent and of the wonders of your grace towards people who share our need of it.

For Jesus sake.

Amen.

"Obey His voice

And all His will esteem" 

We'll need help with that!

So let's pray

Lord we come to you from a week when your presence has been a comfort and a joy to so many of us ... but also something missed and longed for by so many of us from time to time too.

We thank you for every sort of reminder of the precious treasure that it is to walk with God. We rejoice in it and we long for it in our experience.

We rejoice in and we long for the presence of our God that we can personally feel ... help us to rejoice also in your REAL presence, when we are conscious of it and when we are not, when we are comforted by it and when we challenged by its mere remembrance to put our trust again in the God Who sees me even at those times when I do not clearly see Him.

Strengthen, we pray, those of us who feel weak in our faith today.

Safeguard and watch over those of us who feel strong in our faith today, and keep us from stumbling and falling.

Give us all admiration and gratitude for the incredible thing the Lord Jesus did a Calvary for those of us who have come to trust in Him, and may this appreciation of His finished and completed work for us on the Cross draw our hearts out to praise and love Him more.

Give us all an awareness of yourself through the course of each day as things arise that turn our hearts back towards you and prompt us to refer to you on the things that crop up.

Give us a fresh understanding of how your cross and resurrection apply to the challenges and experiences that we are experiencing.

And therefore give us a personal testimony to the world around us of the real presence of the Lord with His people who have turned from sin to trust in Christ and have benefitted from His sin atoning death, His indwelling by the Holy Spirit and His resurrection to eternal

life in Glory.

Would you Lord enable us to see the lost condition of those who are our family, friends and neighbours living without your presence and your power?

Would you give us a little of your care and passion for those who as yet don't 'get' your Gospel?

And would you move us to be people who pray consciously and determinedly for people's souls?

Would you put your Gospel like a fire in our own hearts, and would you fire our readiness to bring others to understanding of all you did for us at thew first Easter?

For Jesus sake we pray ... may He have Glory even through us who stand in such need of His grace.

AMEN.

Here's a taster of the sermon that's coming, and then a song from

 20 Schemes to inspire us in our hearing of God's Word

Clic the pic below for today's reading

Our next song is in Hebrew, but don't panic. 

There's a translation ... and the words don't seem hard in the Hebrew so give it a go! 

(It's the Psalm you've just read, Psalm 117)

Now let's open up that passage of God's Word together

The sermon video this week comes to you from a new phone camera 
(... can you spot the differences?!)

Click the pic

Let's pray

We thank you Father for your generosity to us in the Gospel.

We thank you for the Lord Jesus Who gave Himself for us without swerving away at the cost.

We thank you that there is grace in the Lord Jesus that's enough to cover for all our sin and to establish us in a new, right relationship to our Saviour and our God.

Take us into the coming week with large thoughts of this Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.

We ask for Jesus' sake.

Amen.

If you would like to worship with us by giving to support the work, please click the offering bag below to be taken to our Giving Link.

And if you would like to get in touch, please feel very free to do so!

Thanks.