Below are some up and coming dates to keep in mind:

- Sunday April 29, 6:30-8:30ish City Prayer at Cedar Grove church 10330 144 St.

- 21 day FAST for our city and Surrey Global day of Prayer May 7th-27th

- Wall of Prayer May 17-26

- Surrey Global Day of Prayer Sunday May 27th, 6:00pm.  This is a city event where we as the Church of Surrey will gather to worship and pray together. Please do whatever you can to be there.

Note:  We are looking for a few more churches to take one day of the 10/24 prayer wall. Your church would be responsible to fill that day, every hour with prayer.  If you cannot fill all 24 hours we can connect you with another church. Let me know what day you will take from May 17-26th. If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can strengthen our arm of prayer in the city and build the network, please e-mail me. Bless you all, it’s a joy to see what God is doing in our city!

Mika Kostamo SPN (Surrey Pastors Network)

Come on out on Saturday May 12, 9:00am to be a part of the church spring clean up.

Bring any tools you have and a good pair of gardening gloves.

May 20, 2012  

May 13, 2012  

May 6, 2012  

Apr 29, 2012   

Apr 22, 2012   

Apr 15, 2012   

Apr 8, 2012   

Apr 1, 2012   

Mar 25, 2012

Mar 4, 2012

Feb 26 2012

Feb 19, 2012

Feb 12, 2012

Feb 5, 2012

Jan 29, 2012

Jan 22, 2012

Jan 15, 2012

Jan 8, 2012

Jan 1, 2012

Separated by Sin:

A Gift from God:

Responding to God’s Call:

¹  (God is our refuge and strength,) This often is read as saying “God will protect us from harm, all we have to do is hide in his big huge arms and nothing bad will happen to us”.  But this simply is not true.  If you read this more as God is our shield, or our rock, you might think more about action.  There is a time to hide.  David hid from Saul, he found refuge, he hid, but it was not permanent and this is not meant to be permanent.  If you read “refuge” as hiding, what do you do with the following line, (an ever-present help in trouble).  Are we to hide from trouble?  Are we to weather the storms and then wait for it to be sunny?  The word refuge is a defensive word like in battle.  We are still fighting, holding our ground and we rely on God and his strength because we are not warriors.  1 Corinthians 1 talks about how God chooses the things that are not (wise, popular, strong, worthy).  We are not warriors, we are not strong, God is our strength.  But because God is our strength how strong are we?  We have no excuse!  We are mighty in the Lord.  We do not answer to what?  To the strong?  To those who threaten us?  It goes beyond that.  We do not need to answer to the laws of physics.  God, the creator of the universe, the creator of light, the creator of everything including why things happen when they happen, He is our refuge and our strength.  Many times we limit our strength to our strength.  I can’t fly, I can’t walk on water, I can’t cure sickness.  Well why can’t you?  Who are you relying on?  (ever-present help) Read Revelation 3:20.  The help is not automatic, we need to accept the help and often we do not.

God is our strength. (² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.) Commentators point out that the psalm expresses Gods power over Nature (1-3), ruling nations (4-7) and even over the whole world (8-11)

What do you put your trust in?  What is your security?  For myself I am confident that I can put food on the table for my family, that if I lose my job, I will be able to find more work.  I remember the first time my father got laid off of his work.  I remember as a child an incredible fear for the future.  My trust was in my parents, my hope was in the fact that they could provide for me and that things wouldn’t change, we would keep our house, and my friends, I would grow up in the same town and marry that girl and buy a house just down the road and and and…

My father lost his job.  I was terrified.  But my parents weren’t.  I would have never seen that level of trust displayed by my parents had it not been for my father losing his job.  We spent weeks in prayer as a family for God to show us his will.  My father got offered 2 jobs and again we as a family went to prayer.  We ended up leaving that town, my friends, my security.  And I was thrust into the arms of God and I found refuge in Him as I moved thousands of miles away from everything I knew.  I found strength in Him to do it and I grew.

(though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea).  What do you put your trust in?  What is secure?  There is nothing bigger than a mountain, nothing deeper than the sea.  No one escapes this catastrophe. Though the world gives way.  The writer here is trumping everything.  The end of the world! Though the world ends, we will not fear because we go back to the fact that God is our strength.  I’m reminded of the Brian Doerksen song More than Oxygen: “More than oxygen I need your love”.  What foolishness the Atheist would say, or maybe you thought.  Without oxygen you die.  But death in this life is only temporary.  We often think of life as so important that we hold it up as the most important thing.  We hold everything up to it.  But what is human life?  80 years? 90 years?  We make all of our decisions on earth based on what it will cost us in this life!!!!

(² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging).  Though everything we know and understand is falling around us, we do not fear because God is our refuge (salvation) and our strength (making the weak ready to do mighty works for God)

—————————————-IN CONTRAST——————————————-

(⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells).  In contrast to all that is going on in the world, God is like a calm quiet stream.  So often God identifies Himself with a gentile whisper, calm, quiet.  Isaiah 8 refers to the river of Shiloah that ran through Jerusalem.  It was so quiet without any stirring, it flowed soundlessly through Jerusalem bringing nourishment to the city throughout the year.  In Isaiah, the Jews were not happy with the river (God and his provision) and they longed for other (surrounding provision).

The similarity between Isaiah 8 and this Psalm cannot be ignored.  In Isaiah 8 the people were being uprooted because of their lack of faith in God.  Similarly, we will surely fear when trouble comes if we do not trust in God.

(⁵ God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day).  Obviously the Psalmist did not write this about the church.  But we are heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:26-29).  Understood by the writer to the audience that with God, Jerusalem was unbreakable, could not be invaded.  And this may have been true, although the people rejected God so he allowed them to fall.  But for us today, it cannot be about a place where God is but that we are always with God.  Psalm 1 speaks about one who delights in the word of God.  Day and night they search the scripture.  They are like a tree planted by streams of water.  When God is with us, we fulfill this scripture, (⁵ God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day).  This break of day echo’s one of Israel’s greatest deliverances Exodus 14, where God delivered Israel from the Egyptians, a powerful ruling power at the time.

(⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts).  God has power over Nature (1-3) and now Nations (4-7), (⁷ The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress).  I am angered when TV preachers make judgements about world events and broadcast them to the world.  I am not so much angered by what they say but that they say it.  Verse 8 explains what I mean by this. (⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done,).  1 Corinthians 2 talks about this.  Read 1 Cor 2.  Verse 8 in a more literal translation uses the word  “behold” instead of “see”.  In the original text, the word for behold is generally used for seeing with the inward eye as a “seer” or prophet sees.  Again coming back to 1 Corinthians 2.  How much do we actually see?  How much do we actually understand?  Historians look at the past and make educated guesses on things such as reasons for war and economic collapse.  How many world events were completely controlled and changed because of the hand of God?  We need here to rely on the understanding from God.  We need to see what God see’s.  Imagine a person who says I know better, I have seen what goes on in the world through the TV and a couple blogs and a presidential address and I can now say that God acted unjustly in a situation and so therefore the God of the Bible is wrong.

(⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done,) How? Commune with God (the holy place where the Most High dwells).  (⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. ⁹ He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields^[d] with fire). The same verses but in the ESV (⁸ Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth. ⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire).  What do you think of when you hear Chariots of fire?  Other than the movie, or book, how about 2 Kings 6:8-23.  We cannot for a second think that we understand what all that God is doing.  We must now more than ever, come before Him, bow down before Him, worship Him and submit to His wisdom, and then move forward.  I get angry when TV preachers, who may very well understand some of what is going on in world events, broadcast it to the world and hope that the general public understand it.  I don’t believe many in the church perceive let alone those who don’t believe in God.

(¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;)  We made it to this verse.  Finally!  Its the most famous verse in this psalm and the most misquoted.  What do you think of when you read this?  Do you think of a nice boat on a quite lake in the misty morning?  God is yelling this to the unbelieving world!  It’s like a Kindergarten teacher to a bunch of kids jacked up on Jack-o-lantern candy, “Be still”.  This is not “stop and smell the roses”, although we do need to do that.  This is God calling to the world.  It is not meant to be for Christians, for God’s people living in the strength of God, who find refuge in the battle they are fighting in the name of the Lord.  But it has become a message to us.  Many of us have become the people in Isaiah 8 and God is rejecting us.

If you want to know where you stand today completely regardless of what your beliefs are, if you want to know if you are living in the strength of God, finding refuge in Him ask yourself this question.  What is on your mind?  What is it that captivates your thoughts?  Is it a mountain, too big to climb, or an earthquake, where everything around you is crumbling?  Is it people around you, your work situation?  Or are you looking around you, on TV, making judgements about what you see and coming to the conclusion that God is not strong enough to trust because of all the evil in the world?  Or are you not worried at all?  What is on your mind?

God says (“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth”).  The end is already written.  God wins.  Sin is destroyed completely along with death.  (¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress).  All who are with God will be with Him in eternity.  There is no cause for alarm in this life regarding ourselves, we are his servants.

In the coming months Con will be teaching on being weird.  Being weird is not something you work at, its something you become, not of your strength.  It’s weird to not be worried in life.  It’s weird to have a calm deep strength about yourself in situations where freaking out is the acceptable response.  Being the kind of weird we are talking about always points to something bigger than you, something outside of you.  Being the kind of weird we are talking about can only happen with an incredible encounter with a God who is able to completely change the person you are right now and make you into the person He wants you to be.  You shouldn’t be surprised that I’m talking about the impossible here.

James 4:8-10 speaks of drawing near to God.  He will lift you up.  He will give you something to be thankful for much more than TGIF

Bear Creek Church works continuously to become a church of prayer and worship.  If you have a poem, prayer request, or a story about what God has done recently in your life, share it with us and we will post it on this page!  It is encouraging to learn how God is working not only in our lives, but in those around us.  Please call the office at 604-590-5957 for more information or email your writeup to office@bearcreekchurch.ca.

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God Break My Heart into a Million Pieces
by Julie King

God break my heart into a million pieces, let me shed an ocean of tears, I want to be closer to you, so take away those things I only feel I need so that my one desire would be you, nothing but you.
Send me out on my own, vulnerable and broken so that I may look and see that you were here all along, just waiting for that moment that my heart would be broken and in need of you again.
Let the loneliness I feel in a room full of people, serve to tell me that I’m missing only one thing and that’s your everlasting company anytime, anyplace with no expectations, no concerns of thoughts to impress anyone as you know it all, it’s written on your hands.
So let my heart break into a million pieces let my loneliness and tears fill an entire ocean, because when I am battered and broken is when I need you the most. I want my heart to feel your healing, my tears to see your compassion, my loneliness to seek your everlasting company and love.
I just want to seek your everlasting compassionate grace and powerful love till the end of time.

Nothing but your love,                                                                                                               
Nothing but your love,
Nothing but your strength,
Nothing but your strength, your all I seek, your all I want to discover.

Garbage Man
by Tricia Ris

Saviour, Redeemer, Holy Lamb
I dare to name you the Garbage Man.
Day by day, week by week
I can throw it out or choose to keep
The anger, doubt, bitterness, fears
Unforgiveness, addictions, tears
That You are so willing to take away,
For there on the cross, I heard you say: 

“Father forgive them….”

Why would I choose to keep it inside
Where it rots and stinks, while I try to hide,
When I could let go and I could toss
The whole wretched lot at the foot of the cross?

 It cost You the nails through Your precious hands.
Forgive me, and take it all, Garbage Man.

Wrapping Them
by Tricia Ris

I take out the ribbon
You made such beautiful people
I want them to be with You (be with us)

I take out the ribbon
Wishing they could see You
Your kindness and your sternness

I take out the ribbon
Wrap them carefully in Your love
And give them back to You

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