CENTRAL BULLETIN

Central Grace Church

3596 Franklin Street Rocky Mount, Virginia

Website: www.centralgracechurch.com Email: [email protected]

June 16^th 2019

9:30 am -----------------------------------------------------The Most Pressing Matter – Philippians 3:12-21

10:00 am ---------------------------------------------------------------The Great Fisher of Men – Luke 5:1-11

Tuesday Night Service at 7:00 pm

*** The Lord willing, Dan and Sandy Parks will be with us this week. Tuesday night service, with Daniel speaking. Birthdays: June 22^nd – Nancy Parks (80^th) 23^rd – James Holland, 24^th – Patrick Holland, 25^th – Walter Groover

Cleaning: Steven & Mary, Next week: Mac & Margaret / / / Nursery: Helen / Kathryn

Listen to live audio of services on: www.mixlr.com/centralgracechurch

Listen to: WYTI Radio – Rocky Mount, VA - 8:00 AM – Sundays -- 1570 AM / 104.5 FM,

Here are two good articles on the small things of God’s providence—

The Day of Small Things -- Zechariah 4:10

God delivered a nation from 400 years of bondage with a shepherd’s staff. He slew a giant and saved that nation with a sling and a stone. He turned the world upside down with eleven simple, plain men – and the illustrations that “Little is great when God is in it” are numberless, but we must not just apply this truth to the instrument God uses, but should apply it also to the task. It is true that God uses humble men to perform great works for His glory – but God also uses His servants to teach the little children, to pastor the small assembly, to witness to one Ethiopian, to offer a prayer, to provide an unrecognized and often an unknown service! Most of us are willing to be “humble men” doing great works, but how many of us “great men” are willing to do humble work?

It is most doubtful that our Lord will trust us with any great responsibility until it has been proven that we are faithful in few things! It has been my understanding from the Scriptures that those whom God trusted with great responsibility were content with where they were and with what they were doing. Examples: Moses, David and Joseph. It would be refreshing, instead of hearing what one used to do or what one plans to do and be, to see one dedicated to being what he is and doing with joy and zeal what is at hand! Christ may come today and I could die today, but I’m not sure that He would accept my explanation that I was preparing myself for great things and would have been a teacher if there had been an opening, or a pastor if there had been a church available, or a martyr if men had still been dying, a deacon, an elder, or a church leader after I had aged a bit. Would He? Or would He ask, “What servant chooses his own task? His own place of labor? His own time of service?” Does not the faithful servant ask, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Everybody wants to take the floor, few care to sweep it. The returning prodigal did not labor as a hired servant, but he was willing. -- Henry Mahan

There is nothing really small in human life. We start out in the morning, and what we may call a chance meeting, or the receipt of an ordinary letter, or some very slight circumstance may affect the whole of the subsequent life of quite a number of people. We call this the providence of God, and we do well; and the true Christian heart will always love to trace the hand of God in the ordinary experiences of life. For, after all, “ordinary” means “ordered” and it is the joy of the believer to realize that everything is ordered and that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” The harmonious and beneficent combination of circumstances guided and overruled by the wisdom and will of God constitutes for the Christian soul the joy and cheer of everyday living. – unknown

“Christ is our life in death, our light in darkness, our righteousness in sinfulness and guilt, our holiness in impurity, our redemption in all our miseries.” – Richard Sibbes, England – 1577-1635

“Tenderness of heart is wrought by an apprehension of tenderness and love in Christ. A soft heart is made soft by the blood of Christ. – Sibbes

“The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.” – Sibbes

“A weak faith can lay hold on a strong Christ.” ― Thomas Watson, England – 1620-1686

“No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.” -- Watson