Covenant Update

Today was a great day at Covenant.  We started the day with our 10 AM church service, and had 30 folks in attendance.  We had a good report on Becky, as her latest MRI was normal, which was great news.  Carol King will be admitted to the hospital on Tuesday to be treated for her heart issues, so we need to continue to pray for her.  Betty Arnette is expected to be released from rehab this coming Friday, so that is good news as well.  We also had one additional unnamed prayer request, this should remind us to constantly to pray for our entire church body because there are always some needs which are not brought to our attention.

Remember that this month’s ministry is St. Francis House, if you want to contribute to it.  Today’s bulletin is attached for your review, be sure to check out Tina’s note titled SMILE!.

Pastor Don’s sermon today was titled Is it Worth it?  His scripture was Daniel chapter 6, which I strongly suggest you read.  This chapter shows that other leaders in the government under King Darius became jealous of Daniel because of his extraordinary spirit and King Darius was planning to appoint him over the entire kingdom.  So the other leaders had to convict Daniel on his religious beliefs and convinced the king to pass a new law requiring everyone to just worship the king for 30 days.  The penalty for disobeying the law was to be cast into the lions’ den.  Of course, Daniel stuck to his Godly beliefs and continued to worship the true God instead of the king as required by the new law.  So, the king was deeply distressed when he realized he had been deceived by his other leaders but was forced to send Daniel to the lions’ den.  But King Darius states in verse 16 “… Your God whom you constantly serve will Himself deliver you.”  Of course, that is the end result. 

Don’s point of the story was that Daniel’s beliefs did not change because the law was changed.  Instead, he continued to do the right thing, as we should also do when we are put in conflict between what is the right thing to do and what a law or requirement may expect us to do.  The end result of chapter 16 is that King Darius put all his leaders who had accused Daniel and their families into the lions’ den and they were quickly devoured.  The king then also passed a decree that everyone was to worship the God of Daniel, which was the ultimate right thing to do and it was accomplished because Daniel did the right thing. 

Don’s message is that you always have to fight for right, otherwise wrong will always happen.  Don’t be put in a position of wondering “What if ……”, instead just always do what is right!

Then this afternoon we met again at 4 PM to hear from King and Priscilla Hammond.  We had about 32-33 people present with about 4-5 visitors and the rest were members.  The presentation and Q&A session was great, and attached are the slides from which King presented.  More will be said about King in the coming weeks as the King Ministry is our Covenant April ministry.

Have a very blessed week!

Ron