English Service Sunday at 8.30 am

Chinese Service Sunday at 8.30 am

Other Meetings

We rejoice looking back to the year past and seeing the growth of our children through the year of ministry.   Surely the Lord blessed all of us as the children presented the promise of a Saviour, the birth of the Saviour and the sacrifice of the Saviour during their Prize Giving Day.    We are also thankful for the break and look forward to the resumption of Sunday School for the new year 2010.

Yes, all children are invited to come to our Sunday School on 17^th January 2010 .   Spread the word around.   As a treat, we will be serving ice cream on that day.   So remember 2 things at least – tell your neighbours about our Sunday School and pray for all the children and workers throughout the year.

THE GOOD OF PRAYING

The good of praying is that it gets us to know God and enables God to perform His order through us, no matter what His permissive will may be. A man is never what he is in spite of his circumstances, but because of them. Circumstances, as Reader Harris once said, are like feather beds—very comfortable to be on top of, but immensely smothering if they get on top of you. Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of God, always keeps us on top of our circumstances

How beautiful this undisturbed morning hour is with God!

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O Lord, this day my soul would stay upon Thee as Creator of the world, and upon our Lord Jesus Christ as Creator of His life in me. Oh for the power of Thy Spirit to adore Thee in fuller measure!

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What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation. . . .” Can I think of anything so gracious and complete in surrender and devotion and gratitude as to take from Thee? O Lord, I would that I had a livelier sense of Thee and of Thy bounties continually with me.

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A sweet crop comes by the knife and the Life.

Man-O-War Cay lies like a jewel in an azure sea. One of the Family or Out Islands of the Bahamas , it is little more than two-and-a-half miles long. It is hook shaped, with a well-guarded harbour at its midpoint, coveted by yacht owners. For decades the inhabitants were known by their simple way of life: sail-making, boat-building, and fishing. But in the last fifty or sixty years, wealthy Americans have found their way there, building homes on the extremities of the island, away from the settlement clustered about the harbour.

As one islander told me, “When the Americans came to the Bahamas , they brought with them their money, their gold watches and big boats, and they built their fancy homes. They had a message. We didn't have much money then, or any of the fine things they had. But we had the Lord; we had the gospel. We had a message and they had a message. But they were the better missionaries. We didn't convert them; they converted us.” Those words cut to my heart. I fear I have often been more a convert to the world's values than a missionary with a far better message for money-rich, soul-bankrupt sinners.

I was walking the length of the island one sun-drenched afternoon and came upon a brother who was a gardener for some of the American home owners. I always enjoyed the old fellow's company. He had a native wisdom you can't find in textbooks. He was happy to take me on a little tour of the estate's garden, especially the citrus trees he had carefully cultivated so the visitors would have fresh fruit for their table when they arrived. He pointed to one. “That,” he said, “is a sour orange tree.”

Then, plucking a ripe fruit from its laden branches, he deftly peeled it with his gnarled fingers and handed it to me. I did not relish eating a sour orange.

What was my delight to find it one of the sweetest, juiciest, most succulent oranges I had ever tasted!

The old fellow laughed, then explained. The soil on the island is shallow and beneath it is a bed of coral. When it rains, the water tends to lie just under the surface until it can percolate through the rock. This makes it difficult on tree roots which tend to rot in the underground water. But it has been discovered that the roots of the sour orange are hardy enough to survive in those conditions. No one, however, wants sour oranges.

Once a sour orange tree takes good root, a sweet orange branch is grafted in. The sour orange continues to grow, constantly attempting to dominate the life of the tree. But the gardener patiently prunes back the old life until a bountiful tree stands in the garden, providing shade, fragrance, and a fruitful harvest for its owner.

Sour root. Sweet fruit. So is it a sour orange tree or a sweet orange tree? Let our Lord answer the question. “Every good tree produces good fruits, but the worthless tree produces bad fruits. A good tree cannot produce bad fruits, nor a worthless tree produce good fruits...By their fruits then surely ye shall know them” (Mt. 7:17 -20, Darby). The tree is known not by its root but by its fruit. Call it a sweet orange tree.

We also grow in a difficult environment. And what is more, we grow from a sour stock, of ourselves incapable of growing anything but sour fruit. But because we have received “with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas. 1:21 ), a new kind of fruit is possible in the lives of those who still give evidence of the old sour life sprouting up here and there. If we yield such sour evidence of the flesh to the knife (the written Word) wielded in the hands of the gracious Gardener, we will soon bear by His life (the Living Word) “the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22). Such a life will be sweet indeed.