Announcements: January 17, 2010
Haiti has always been a special concern of St. Matthews parish, and members have given much generous support to various projects there in the past, particularly through Globeworks International and the ministry of Rev. Dale Cutlip and colleagues.The sheer horror, dimensions, and devastation of the recent earthquake in Haiti once again quickens our compassion, prayer, and giving towards the comfort of the victims of this massive disaster. There are various well known and trustworthy avenues of support that have made it very convenient to send cash donations. Globeworks will be co-ordinating the provision of necessary supplies from their base in the Dominican Republic and Bishop T.J. Johnson of AMiA, who has exercised a ministry in Haiti for twenty years, is also organizing an outreach of relief and care on behalf of the leadership and members of the Mission.These specific efforts of Christ-like sympathy for the afflicted may be contacted as follows: GLOBEWORKS INTERNATIONAL, P.O. Box 661435, Birmingham, AL 35266.

Give to AMIA: Anglican Mission in the Americas, P.O. Box 3427, Pawleys Island, SC 29585.

May the truly tremendous efforts of help already underway alleviate the anguish, injuries, and grief of the people of Haiti, and may the love of the Christian community throughout the world, shown in such prayerful and practical ways, further establish the cause of Christ in that stricken and struggling land. “And let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful” (Titus 3:14).

Almighty Father, we beseech thee to look mercifully upon us who are about to commemorate the death of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Grant that our whole hope and confidence may be in his merits and thy mercy. Pardon our sins; accept our imperfect repentance; and make this commemoration available to the confirmation of our faith, the establishment of our hope, and the enlargement of our love; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  A prayer of Samuel Johnson for Holy Communion

It appears from his Prayers and Meditations, that Johnson suffered much from a state of mind "unsettled and perplexed", and from that constitutional gloom, which together with his extreme humility and anxiety with regard to his religious state, made him contemplate himself through too dark and unfavourable a medium. It may be said of him, that he "saw God in clouds".  JAMES BOSWELL

Only by using faith are we kept from practically losing it, and, on the contrary, to use faith is to lose the unbelief that hinders God’s mighty acts.
ARTHUR T. PIERSON on George Müller of Bristol

I am obliged to say plainly that, in my judgment, we have among us neither the men nor the doctrines of the days gone by ...Once let the evangelical ministry return to the ways of the 18th century, and I firmly believe we should have as much success as before. We are where we are, because we have come short of our fathers. J.C. RYLE

I tell you when the Spirit of God is on us the world looks very empty; the world has a very small hold upon us, and we begin to let go our hold of it. When the Spirit of God is on us we will just let go the things of time and lay hold of things eternal. This is the Church’s need today; we want the Spirit to come in mighty power, and consume all the vile dross there is in us.   DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY

But nothing has ever pleased Him more than that His Son should lay down His life in atonement for those sinners whom the Father had chosen and ordained to everlasting life. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, because in this way alone could God’s full hatred of sin be declared to men and angels, and at the same time God’s justice might be manifested in the salvation of sinners.  ALEXANDER WHYTE

All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them. See the cases of David, of Jonathan and his armour-bearer, of Asa, Jehoshaphat, and many others. Oh! beloved friends, if there is a living God, faithful and true, let us hold His faithfulness.
JAMES HUDSON TAYLOR

When you felt inclined to pray it was Jesus Christ who moved you in that direction. When you said, I think I see more clearly today; truth seems to be enlarging, - it was Christ who was performing a miracle upon you. Trace all happy impulse, all sacred inspiration, all ennobling influence, to the touch, the glance, the benediction of Christ.

JOSEPH PARKER

All events are under the control of Providence; consequently all the trials of our outward life are traceable at once to the great First Cause. Out of the golden gate of God’s ordinance the armies of trial march forth in array, clad in their iron armour, and armed with weapons of war. All providences are doors to trial. Even our mercies, like roses, have their thorns. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. Our mountains are not too high, and our valleys are not too low for temptations: trials lurk on all roads.

C.H. SPURGEON

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility....There is no place or position so sacred but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride can lift its head in the very temple of God, and make his worship the scene of its self-exaltation. Since the time Christ so exposed his pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the publican ... And the publican will find that his danger is not from the Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within who commends and exalts.

ANDREW MURRAY

For this is the confidence of Christians, and the joy of our consciences, that by faith our sins become not ours but Christ’s, on whom God has put our sins and he has borne our sins – He who is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. And again all Christ’s righteousness is ours. For he lays his hands upon us and it is well with us; and he spreads his robe over us and covers us – the blessed Saviour forever, Amen!

MARTIN LUTHER

The call to humility has been too little regarded in the Church, because its true nature and importance has been too little apprehended. It is not a something which we bring to God, or He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all. When the creature realises that this is the true nobility, and consents to be with his will, his mind, and his affections, the form, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, he sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his position as creature, and yielding to God His place.

ANDREW MURRAY

Nothing in our prayers is often more hollow and unreal than the formal repetitions of the syllables of that divine name, often but to fill a pause in our thoughts. But to ‘call upon the Name of the Lord’ means, first and foremost, to bring before our minds the aspects of His great and infinite character, which are gathered together into the Name by which we address Him. So when we say ‘Jehovah!’ ‘Lord!’ what we ought to mean is this, that we are gazing upon the majestic, glorious thought of Being, self-derived, self-motived, self-ruled, the being of Him whose Name can only be, ‘I am that I am’ - the Eternal, Self-subsisting, Self-sufficing one.

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

A single line of sacred Scripture is an abundant answer to all the reasonings and all the imaginations of the human mind and when one has the Word of God as the basis of his convictions, he may calmly stand against the full tide of human opinion and prejudice. The same Word has sustained the millions of God’s saints from that (Noah’s) day to this, in the face of the world’s contradiction. Hence, we cannot set two high a value upon the Word of God.

CHARLES HENRY MACKINTOSH
An Irish leader of the Plymouth Brethren
movement known by his initials “C.H.M.”

We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.

That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.

BLAISE PASCAL

True religion is not people searching for God but people responding to revealed truth.

J. ALEC MOTYER