Saturday, August 30, 2025

The God We Love (Nicene Creed)

 
The God We Love (Nicene Creed) 
 CityAlight-featuring Matt Redman

V1
We believe in one God, the Father 
The Almighty, the Maker of all 
The One who rules the seen and unseen 
We believe, and we adore
Jesus Christ, one Lord of creation
From the Father, begotten not made
He is the Light from Light eternal
And the God of every age
 
CHORUS
All glory to the Father now
All honour to the Son
And praise the Spirit, now and always
This is the God we love
 
V2
For this world and for our salvation
He came down from the heavens above
Born of a virgin and the Spirit
Truly man and truly God
He was crucified under Pilate,
Suffered death and was laid in the grave
And in accordance with the scriptures
On the third He rose again 

CHORUS
All glory to the Father now
All honour to the Son
And praise the Spirit, now and always
This is the God we love

BRIDGE
And He has made His ascent 
Into the heavens above
Where He sits at the Father’s right hand now 
But He will come back again
And He will judge in truth

The Holy Spirit has come, 
Voice of the prophets of God
     Sent to us, he has given us new life
      Forgiven, now and baptised        
One holy church, we rise
We rise…

CHORUS
All glory to the Father now
All honour to the Son
And praise the Spirit, now and always
This is the God we love

V3
Now we wait to be resurrected
And we look for the world without end
This is our creed, our faith, our anthem 
This is the God we love
This is the God we love
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Therefore, stay awake...

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.  Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.   
-Matthew 24:42-44 Image

---------------Minneapolis----------------

Stats Show Shocking Surge In Attacks On Churches In America    In 2024, the United States witnessed a significant uptick in acts of hostility targeting churches, with a total of 436 documented incidents—a sharp increase from 315 in 2023 and nearly double the 230 reported in 2022.

Trump's DHS tells Americans to 'pray without ceasing' after Catholic church shooting ...some Democrats and leftists have mocked the calls for “thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of the attack.

...a gigantic game of pretend, a broad and deliberate dissociation from reality for the purpose of maintaining a political racketeering operation, which is what the Democratic Party had become.

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----------------Faith take---------------

We typically think of—and pray for—God to intervene in our lives to remove trials, pain, difficulties, and hardships. Calvin’s view is the opposite: God intervenes in our lives by placing trials, pain, difficulties, and hardships in our lives. Whatever ails us in our spiritual lives, the remedy, Calvin says, is the blessing of a cross to bear.

Not a few members of our small group struggled with this idea. Particularly those who were experiencing real, present, pervasive, life-altering, dream-shattering, soul-crushing, inescapable suffering.

The intellectual answer is simple: God ordains trials in our lives for our good (see James 1:2-4 and Romans 8:28-29).

The experiential answer is much more revealing because the real, present, pervasive, life-altering, dream-shattering, soul-crushing inescapable experience of suffering digs down to our deepest desires: What do you hope for in this life? Read it all...
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Friday, August 29, 2025

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses...

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:1-2 Image

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----------------Minneapolis fallout----------------


Democrats Want to Kill You if You Pray  The Democrats are too effete to fight an outright civil war. As I wrote yesterday, they'd rather have the victim groups they've beaten into submission do their dirty work. They're gunning for us, though, and all the while, they're trying to take our guns.



The Annunciation shooting reveals the savagery of identity politics We have to grapple with the possibility that a culture that forces the individual ever more inwards, inviting them to obsess over their own fantasy identities and to loathe any ‘phobe’ who refuses to genuflect at their altar of the self, is wrenching people ever further and ever more violently from society itself.

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REPORT: One Third of Gen Z Was Never Born If America lost one-third of an entire generation to war, disease, suicide, or gun violence, it would be treated as the greatest tragedy in our nation’s history. But according to a new report, abortion has claimed the lives of that many would-be Gen Zers – and hardly anyone in the political or media establishment has taken note.



-----------------Faith take---------------

Those scoffing at Christians’ prayer after Wednesday’s tragedy repeat the folly of the crowds who dared the crucified Christ to save Himself. Image

Tozer levels this word of rebuke to the American Christians of his day:
"Perhaps the most serious charge that can be brought against modern Christians is that we are not sufficiently in love with Christ. The Christ of fundamentalism is strong but hardly beautiful. It is rarely that we find anyone aglow with personal love for Christ. I trust it is not uncharitable to say that in my opinion a great deal of praise in conservative circles is perfunctory and forced, where it is not downright insincere...
...Christ can never be known without a sense of awe and fear accompanying the knowledge. He is the fairest among ten thousand, but He is also the Lord high and mighty. He is the friend of sinners, but He is also the terror of devils. He is meek and lowly in heart, but He is also Lord and Christ who will surely come to be the judge of all men. No one who knows Him intimately can ever be flippant in His presence."

-----------------Cuteness!---------------
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Thursday, August 28, 2025

I the Lord will answer them...

When the poor and needy seek water,
    and there is none,
    and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them;
    I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
    and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
    and the dry land springs of water.
 I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
    the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress,
    the plane and the pine together,
 that they may see and know,
    may consider and understand together,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
    the Holy One of Israel has created it.
-Isaiah 41:17-20

----------------Minneapolis----------------


The Mass Shooting In Minneapolis Followed A Pattern That Is Becoming Very Familiar  We have seen this happen way too many times before.  Over and over again, mass shootings are being committed by deranged individuals that hate conservatives and hate Christians.  More often than not, the shooters are deeply involved in an alternative sexual lifestyle, and so they view conservatives and Christians as their “oppressors”.  Frequently, the shooters have some sort of a personal connection to the particular target that has been chosen.  Of course in so many of these cases the mainstream media will completely ignore the real reason why a mass shooting has taken place.  But the American people are not stupid.  We can all see what is happening, and it is time for the mainstream media to start admitting the truth.

Blood, Tears, and Lessons in a Minneapolis Church No wonder the Democrat talking heads are more comfortable calling out the mourners, for praying, than they are calling out the gunman for his crimes.





----------------Pray for the nations----------------


UK Schools Sending Children as Young as Four Home for ‘Racism’  Even in cases involving older pupils, the problem often lies more with the teachers themselves.

The celebration of childlessness has gone too far  Britain’s birth rate has plummeted. It is a sad truth that many couples later regret not having children



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Civics Revolution: Conservatives Are Reviving Traditional Education With a Modern Twist To some degree, as a response to the overreach of the Great Awokening of the past decade, civics is gaining traction.

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Dr. David Speicher’s Peer-Reviewed Bombshell: DNA Contamination in Pfizer’s mRNA Vaccines  For the first time, legally admissible scientific evidence now confirms what many suspected: that mRNA vaccines may have contained DNA contaminants with profound and undisclosed risks.


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Back to Gas: School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Biden’s Electric Buses Can’t Be Repaired  Lion Electric, which received $159 million in federal funds to manufacture electric buses, has fallen into bankruptcy and failed to deliver $95 million worth of buses.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2025

In the Lord I take refuge...

                                                            
In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
    Flee like a bird to your mountain,
 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
    they have fitted their arrow to the string
    to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
 if the foundations are destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?

 The Lord is in his holy temple;
    the Lord's throne is in heaven;
    his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
 The Lord tests the righteous,
    but his soul hates the wicked 
and the one who loves violence.
 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
    fire and sulfur and a scorching wind 
shall be the portion of their cup.

 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
    the upright shall behold his face.
-Psalm 11

-----------------Pray for the victims-----------------



-----------------Pray for the nations-----------------




The devastating cost of cashless bail  Meanwhile, millions of taxpayer dollars have flowed into programs designed to support criminals – housing them, feeding them, offering them endless “second chances.” And what about us? The victims? We struggle day to day, financially and emotionally, often with no resources, no lifeline, no recognition. Families are left with empty chairs at the dinner table, mounting bills for funerals and therapy, and the haunting trauma that never goes away.

This Pro-Palestine Group Is Defacing New York  Within Our Lifetime has organized several lawless demonstrations

College Crackdown...American institutions of higher education are facing a much-needed reckoning   We must return to a time when students attended school to earn a BS after finishing their college courses. As it stands now, students often end up with a load of BS before they graduate.



Why Do Governments Keep Lying About Net Zero? The reality that Net Zero is expensive, restrictive and destabilising is slowly occurring to people and politicians alike. Whether by design or incompetence, the effect is the same: ordinary families pay, governments gain power, and companies take huge profits.



Monster Who Raped a Child Under 11 Released by NYPD ICE later found and arrested Robert Reid Mendez Jimenez after his release by NYPD two weeks ago.



-----------------Faith take-----------------

The time has finally come.
   With the rapid growth and development of artificial intelligence, we can now officially say that it’s impossible to tell what’s real.
   Everything can now be faked in such a way that the savviest among us can no longer tell the difference between reality and AI. Even our most trusted news sources can’t be sure if they’re being duped or not, unless they witness each news event personally, an impossible feat.
   With every video, voice, or picture, we —if we’re discerning enough—now must question the veracity of what our eyes see and ears hear.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly...

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.      
-Colossians 3:12-17 Image

........For prayer.......


They even have a theme: #raisethecolours



Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick voids ‘illegal’ $7.4B payment to Biden ally-staffed nonprofit for semiconductor research ...Biden Administration officials spent significant time, effort, and resources creating an unaccountable, outside entity–Natcast–to administer taxpayer funds,” Lutnick wrote Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford.



Medically Assisted Suicide is a Bad Idea...Time for a wakeup call  Mainstream, secular outlets are increasingly noticing the negative effects and spread of assisted suicide.


Coloradans getting first-hand taste of progressive squalor  Have you noticed recently how trash-laden the Denver-area highways have become?

New Orleans, a Carnival of Corruption  Instead, New Orleans is in a perpetual state of crisis, with decaying infrastructure, dilapidated streets, rampant violent crime, substandard public schools, a poor economy, and public officials who are either inept or corrupt.






Exposing the rot in Canada’s professional bodies Nurse Amy Hamm has been financially ruined for daring to criticise gender ideology

---------------Faith takes--------------

Always Reforming: Why Extraordinary Results in the Church Have Always Depended on Ordinary Means   Faithful churches in every generation will always face the temptation to measure their fruitfulness by what is visible, quick, and appealing. But the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed—small, slow-growing, yet ultimately unshakable. The growth God gives may not come through the things we can engineer, but through the things Christ has promised to bless.
   A church shaped by the ordinary means of grace may be quieter, smaller, and slower. But it will also be deeper, more resilient, and more faithful. It will form people not around events, but around Christ. Not around performance, but around promise. Not around consumer appeal, but around covenantal commitment.
   So let us return again to that great rallying cry of the Reformation: semper reformanda. Always reforming—not according to the preferences of our age, but according to the word of God. Always realigning, not with the winds of culture, but with the voice of Christ. Always repenting, always refining, always renewing—until our life together as the church bears the shape of the gospel we proclaim. Read it all...

In ten years, most Mainline denominations will likely still legally exist but most of them will be little more than shells. The congregations that will have survived will be indifferent and will have adapted to the new reality of post denominational America. The “end” of the Mainline may resemble the “end” of the Roman Empire, about which historians still debate. Did it end with a particular emperor? If so, people at the time likely barely noticed. Their lives continued largely as before, as others ruled where the emperor had been. And other entities claimed they were the new Rome. In one hundred years, historians of American religion will debate when the Mainline Protestant denominations ended. There might be no conclusive answer.


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Monday, August 25, 2025

It is good to give thanks to the Lord...

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
    and your faithfulness by night,
 to the music of the lute and the harp,
    to the melody of the lyre.
 For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
    at the works of your hands I sing for joy
-Psalm 92:1-4

For prayer: 


The Persecution of Christians, July 2025



Mega Exodus Rocks U.S. Catholic Church: 9 Out of 10 Cradle Catholics Defect 



Denmark Made a Special Exception To Let In Hundreds of Palestinian Refugees. Here’s What Happened  Sixty-seven of the 321 refugees received prison sentences, while a majority relied on public welfare...

Cultural Domination
Psychological Warfare
Normalization of Extremism
Global Pattern






...psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and suicide attempts


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Saturday, August 23, 2025

I Will Praise Him Again

 
 Psalm 42 (I Will Praise Him Again) 
 CityAlight

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why are you troubled within?
For I will hope in my Saviour, my God
And will praise Him, yet praise Him again

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I will praise Him yet praise Him again

Morning by morning, new mercies are streaming
I trust in your goodness where I cannot see
You have been faithful whenever I wandered
Lord, give me the hope that I need
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Friday, August 22, 2025

Who is a God like you...

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
    and passing over transgression
    for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
    because he delights in steadfast love.
 He will again have compassion on us;
    he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
    into the depths of the sea.
 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
    and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
    from the days of old. -Micah 7:18-20

For prayer...



If Trump conducts peace, they prefer war.
If he wages war on crime, they side with the criminal.
If he stops illegal immigration, they want more illegal immigrants.



Defining Spiritual Abuse Down

N.Y. Appeals Court FINALLY Tosses Letitia James Ridiculous Civil Fine Against Trump 

Only 17% Of 25-34-Year-Old Americans Have Attained The 5 Major Milestones Of Adulthood ...the 5 major milestones of adulthood are living away from your parents, completing your education, getting a job, marrying, and living with a child.

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Monday, August 18, 2025

The Least Attended Church Gathering

At the church I pastor, we have a regular gathering that serves as a monthly prayer meeting on the last Sunday of every month. The other times of prayer in the life of our church occur in our morning worship service and during our weekly/bi-weekly small groups. Most of the time, our monthly prayer meeting is fairly well attended. I suspect that it is, at least in part, due to the fact that we have a meal. However, it is a sad reality of the church in the Western world that the prayer meeting is "the least attended church gathering." I have experienced this sad reality first hand as a member of a church of 1000+ where 8 to 10 people would show up for the weekly prayer meeting. It didn't take me long to realize that prayerlessness is one of the foremost sins and symptoms of an anemic church.

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Paul reminds us that "God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33). Paul isn’t calling for worship services under rigid, pharisaical control. Instead, we should pursue the confident freedom and musical agility that comes through disciplined preparation. Through faith-filled planning (dream!) and reality-packed preparation (dread!), worship leaders can embrace (faith!) both order and spontaneity, structure and Spirit-led moments.
    May we approach worship leadership with renewed appreciation for how preparation enables Spirit-led spontaneity. As we plan thoughtfully, prepare thoroughly, and present worship skillfully, may we help God’s people to celebrate the gospel in fresh and compelling ways.

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Saturday, August 16, 2025

Psalm 121 (I Lift My Eyes)

 
Psalm 121 (I Lift My Eyes) 
Kristyn Getty, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker

I lift my eyes up to the Hills
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Maker of
The heavens and the earth
He will not let my foot be moved
He keeps my journey safe

CHORUS
O my soul, praise the Lord most high
Strong to save, He upholds my life
Forevermore, He will be my light
I lift my eyes up to the Lord most high

He is the shade at my right hand
My shelter in the storm
No sun by day, nor moon by night
Shall ever bring me harm
He will not slumber, will not sleep
He watches all my ways

CHORUS

I lift my eyes up to the hills
From where does my help come
My help comes from the Maker of
The heavens and the earth
The God of Isr’l is my guide
Wherever I may go
And in His strength I will abide
Until He leads me home
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Saturday, August 9, 2025

Dress Your Heart for Worship...

Are you ever surprised at the state you’re in when you arrive at church? The decent clothes you don only paper over a reluctant and doubting heart. Or a fight ensued in the car — not a new fight, just the same old predictable tension. During the opening songs, you can’t focus. In the company of saints, shiny hooks with tempting bait drop all around you: Here, take a delicious, judgy bite about his marriage. Chomp down on that anger-lure as you remember what she said. Snack on the envy of a guy who didn’t deserve his success.
   Wild thoughts swing through your mind during God’s praises. What in the world is the matter with me? you ask yourself.  Read it all...
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Saturday, August 2, 2025

All to Honour Jesus

 
All to Honour Jesus 
 CityAlight

V1
Father, may I serve like my Saviour
Give me eyes to see what you see
Teach my sinful heart to be humble
Help me be your hands and feet

V2
Father, may I love like my Saviour
As He had compassion on me
May I work for justice and mercy
For the ones in greatest need

CHORUS
God of love would you lead me
Take this heart, make it holy
Help me serve
through the strength of Christ
All to honour Jesus with my life
All to honour Jesus with my life

V3
Father, may I tell of my Saviour
How He offers hope for the lost
Help me share the grace and forgiveness
That he showed me at the cross

CHORUS
God of love would you lead me
Take this heart, make it holy
Help me serve
through the strength of Christ
All to honour Jesus with my life
All to honour Jesus with my life

BRIDGE
Praise my Saviour for His mercy
Praise the Servant King
All to Jesus be the glory
All to honour Him

Praise my Saviour for His mercy
Praise the Servant King
All to Jesus be the glory
All to honour Him
All to honour Him

CHORUS
God of love would you lead me
Take this heart, make it holy
Help me serve
through the strength of Christ
All to honour Jesus with my life
All to honour Jesus with my life
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