Quiet day

Had a lie in this morning, then Mum came and bought her cooker covers to extend the worktop, she has left them with me to see how i get on, before i invest in some.

Rest of the day was taken up with more stitching i finished the Kite Surfer.

This evening i went to Bible study at Jo's.

Ups and Downs Day

Around 9.30 i got a call from Sam at AgeUK offering me the Job yay so excited, she was most impressed with my practical assessment and the job is mine pending references and CRB.

We went in Lynn today, we went to the Range to get some things for Senior Section,  then into Lynn and took some photos for potential premises for Calendar Club, we went to the walks and had chip butty and pop, just like we used to on Saturday lunch time before we got married.

On the way home, we popped to see mum and dad.

During the day i have had incredible hip pain i am in such despair, i do not know what to do, it is making me so distraught i am just so terrified of going to the doctor.

This evening i had bible study we had an air and share time.

Quiet Day

Today i did my Tuesday constitutional and did the Housework..............

Mum and Dad came to visit us this morning and we had a chat which was nice.

The rest of the day was took up with stitching, however, i find it can be a lonely occupation. I started the design Go Fly a Kite.

This evening i went to Bible study and we had a social with a Faith Supper which was pleasant, we are carrying on meeting during the summer for informal air and shares.

Week 8 - Strange but true

Today we looked at Abraham and Isaac, and talked about our faith and how God tests us.

Week 7 - He Feels your pain

Genesis 15

The LORD’s Covenant With Abram

 ¹ After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:    “Do not be afraid, Abram.
   I am your shield,^[a]
   your very great reward.^[b]”
 ² But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit^[c] my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
 ⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring^[d] be.”
 ⁶ Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
 ⁷ He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
 ⁸ But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
 ⁹ So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
 ¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
 ¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
 ¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi^[e] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Tonight we discussed how to overcome impossible things and how God does it in his own time.

Week 6 - Why Me?

The second part of Bible Study focussed on Abram.

Genesis 12

The Call of Abram

 ¹ The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.  ² “I will make you into a great nation,
   and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.^[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you.”^[b]
 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
 ⁶ Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring^[c] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
 ⁸ From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
 ⁹ Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

Abram in Egypt

 ¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. ¹¹ As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. ¹² When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. ¹³ Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”  ¹⁴ When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. ¹⁵ And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
 ¹⁷ But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸ So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” ²⁰ Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

Our discussion focussed on How God finds you and have you responded to him, we discussed challenges and swapped profound moments when we felt God was with us.

In the Beginning - Review

The beginning of todays Bible study focussed on reviewing the first 5 weeks.
Comments made included:-


Week 1 - Meet the Author
Gods Will - God is Creative - Beauty - Love - Fellowship.

Week 2 - Eyes Wide Open
Sin is a wrecker

Week 3 - Clean Sweep
God is Grieved - Sin leads to death - Gods Grace

Week 4 - Never Again
Coming through Difficult Times - Prayer

Week 5 - Can we Talk
Communication - Pride

Week 5 - Can we Talk?

We started by reading Genesis 11: 1-9

Genesis 11

The Tower of Babel

 ¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward,^[a] they found a plain in Shinar^[b] and settled there.  ³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
 ⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower they were building. ⁶ The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
 ⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel^[c]—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Tonights discussed focussed on Pride, Humility and Communication, this is a subject close to my heart, i feel there is not enough communication within the family unit and as the saying goes it takes two to tango, more communication would lead to less wars, less divorce a much better world.

Week 4 - Never Again

Today was following Genesis 8:1 - 9:17

Genesis 8

 ¹ But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. ² Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. ³ The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, ⁴ and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
 ⁶ After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark ⁷ and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹ But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹ When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. ¹² He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
 ¹³ By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
 ¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. ¹⁷ Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
 ¹⁸ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
 ²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. ²¹ The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though^[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
 ²² “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

Genesis 9

God’s Covenant With Noah

 ¹ Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ² The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. ³ Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.  ⁴ “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
 ⁶ “Whoever sheds human blood,
   by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
   has God made mankind.
 ⁷ As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
 ⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹ “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰ and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
 ¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
 ¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

 The discussion centred on what you could do today to show God you are Grateful for his love.

Week 3 - Clean Sweep

Tonight we read Genesis 6:5 - 7:24.

Genesis 6:5-7:24 (New International Version)

 ⁵ The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ⁶ The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. ⁷ So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” ⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

Noah and the Flood

 ⁹ This is the account of Noah and his family.    Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. ¹⁰ Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
 ¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. ¹² God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. ¹³ So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. ¹⁴ So make yourself an ark of cypress^[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. ¹⁵ This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.^{[b] 16} Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit^[c] high all around.^[d] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. ¹⁷ I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. ¹⁸ But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹ You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. ²⁰ Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹ You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
 ²² Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Genesis 7

 ¹ The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ² Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, ³ and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. ⁴ Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
 ⁵ And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
 ⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, ⁹ male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
 ¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
 ¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. ¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. ¹⁵ Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
 ¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.^{[e][f] 21} Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
 ²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

The story of Noah, and we had a lot of discussion about sin.

Week 2 - Eyes Wide Open

This weeks study focussed on Genesis 3, and we talked about sin and guilt, we talked about where it all went wrong.

Very thought provoking.

Week 1 - Meet the Author

Today we started a bible study course, that i have been looking forward to, studying the bible from Genesis to Revelation.

We started with Genesis 1, 2.

The author in this case is God, we discussed the creation and what is meant to us, a very thought provoking study.

After studying we were asked the questions:

What evidence for the existance of God do you see in the World around you.
When do you feel closest to God.

Answers that came up were

Love
Creativity
Standards
Church

E100 Bible Challenge

When we return to Bible Study in 4 weeks time we are starting work on the E100 Bible challenge, we received the books last night, i am looking forward to having a look through it.

What is the E100 Bible Reading Challenge?

The E100 Bible Reading Challenge is based around 100 carefully selected Bible readings (50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament) designed to give participants a good understanding of the overall Bible story from Genesis to Revelation. The 'E' stands for Essential and each of the Essential 100 readings ranges from a few verses to a few chapters.
The programme is very flexible and can be used by individuals but it is even more powerful when adapted to the context of the local church. Through completing the challenge, participants are encouraged to build a regular habit of spending time with God through Bible reading and prayer.

Who is behind the challenge?

The programme was pioneered by Scripture Union in the USA where it is now a joint project with American Bible Society. Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Argentina are implementing or planning nationwide E100 campaigns.
As part of the Biblefresh initiative, a consortium comprising the national Bible Societies and the Scripture Union movements of England and Wales, Ireland Northern Ireland and Scotland, along with Wycliffe Bible Translators has been formed to promote the programme throughout Britain and Ireland.

Essential 100 by Whitney T Kuniholm

Product Description

Grasp the big picture of what the Bible is all about through 100 readings with help and prayers throughout The world's best-selling book is in danger of becoming the least read! Yet in it God wants to communicate with the people he created and loves. The Bible's not an easy read. But that's where "Essential 100" fits in - 100 carefully selected Bible passages from both Old and New Testaments along with short, engagingly written notes help you reflect on the Bible's meaning and relevance for you today. It highlights the major themes and gives the 'big picture' from Genesis to Revelation.

About the Author

Whitney Kuniholm has held the post of President of SU USA since 1997. He has written six books on the subject of personal and group Bible study including "John: The Living Word". He has also written articles for various newsletters and Christian magazines. Whitney and his wife Carol live in Pennsylvania.

Content in Christ

Tonight we finished off our Bible Study series Discipleship Explained on week Content in Christ.

It was a very thought provoking study talking about how content we were in our lives about doing everything through Christ, about being content with our lot. About thinking about excellent and praiseworthy things rather than despicable things.

This was the last Bible study for 4 weeks the next one is on the 10th May, with people on holidays and easter it seemed logical, although i can do with the break, i will miss the fellowship.

Rejoicing in Christ

Last night we completed our 7th Bible study in the Discipleship Explored course, entitled Rejoicing in Christ.
We read Phillippians 3: 10-11 and then had a discussion on Knowing Christ.
We then watched a short DVD.
The continued our discussion about Rejoicing in the Lord. we had a long discussion about worry and anxiety and what action we should take.
Fergus made an interesting reference 'If you want to worry less, Pray More'

One of the references we looked up was 1 Peter 4: 14-16
Just under those verses was the following verse which caught my eye

It is hard for the Righteous to be saved
What will become of the Ungodly and Sinner

We are back to the word Righteous again.

As this series of bible study is reaching its conclusion we discussed what we would do after it finished, we discussed doing E100 which is a bible study challenge to read 100 verses from Genesis to Revelations.

http://www.e100challenge.org.uk/


The E100 Bible Reading Challenge is based around 100 carefully selected Bible readings (50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament) designed to give participants a good understanding of the overall Bible story from Genesis to Revelation. The 'E' stands for Essential and each of the Essential 100 readings ranges from a few verses to a few chapters.

Bible Study - Discipleship Explored

On the 15th February we started studying Discipleship Explored Study Guide

About the course

Discipleship Explored is a journey into the book of Philippians. As they discover Paul's extraordinary letter, participants explore for themselves the meaning of Paul's words: "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

DE is for anyone who wants to make the most of their Christian lives. In particular, DE is perfect for participants who have been through Christianity Explored and have recently decided to follow Christ. The Universal Edition of the course is suitable for use with anyone who is learning English or who appreciates simple language. The International Student Edition is aimed at participants from different cultural backgrounds.

The course lasts eight weeks, with each weekly session lasting about 2 hours.

Each session has a Group Discussion, a DVD, a short study in Philippians, a short talk, and a further Group Discussion.

The topics covered are as follows each week:

1. Confident In Christ (Philippians 1:1-11)
2. Living In Christ (Philippians 1:12-26)
3. Standing Together In Christ (Philippians 1:27 - 2:11)
4. Transformed By Christ (Philippians 2:12-30)
5. Righteous In Christ (Philippians 3:1-9)
6. Knowing Christ (Philippians 3:10 - 4:1)
7. Rejoicing In Christ (Philippians 4:2-9)
8. Content In Christ (Philippians 4:10-23)

Philippians is a letter written to young Christians, encouraging them to stand firm and live for Christ. It is compelling, challenging and inspiring - particularly to those beginning the Christian life, because they are on exactly the same journey as the Philippians! Course leaders benefit from six training sessions that precede the course, giving them a confidence that is founded on a deeper understanding of Philippians. Also built into the course is a Bible reading plan to help every participant explore each theme further - and also develop the habit of reading the Bible daily.

Discipleship Explored course resources include a Study Guide, Course leader manual and DVD. The new Universal edition and International Student edition also offer tailored versions of the course.

Study Guide

A beautifully designed book to give to those taking part in the course. Featuring eight studies in Philippians to work through week by week, the Study Guide also contains a built-in Bible reading plan that encourages participants to read the Bible daily.

Essential for every leader. It includes weekly Bible studies (complete with answers) and talk outlines with suggested illustrations to help those delivering talks. Also inside are notes and training material to help you get to grips with Philippians.

Contains all the talks for the eight week Discipleship Explored course. Filmed on location around the UK, it also includes questions for group discussion. It is designed for use with the Discipleship Explored Leader's Guide and Study Guide.

www.christianityexplored.org/de/