Peter Richmond from Hesed (Pembrokeshire Prayer for the Suffering Church) was the guest speaker on Sunday.

He spoke from Psalm 1, about the differences between those who choose to follow God and those who choose to go their own way instead. Some things in life we cannot choose, but this is one choice we do have.

There are two ways that we can walk in. We can either walk in the ways of the Lord and follow His guidance for our life; or we can 'walk in the counsel of the wicked' (v1), ignoring God and listening to the guidance of those who are against Him.

It also talks about those who 'stand in the way of sinners' in v1. We shouldn't be listening to those who are against God's laws, but we need to stand against all that is sinful. Ephesians 6v14 talks about standing firm on God's truth.

In Psalm 24v3-4 it asks: "Who may stand in his holy place?" The answer is "He who has clean hands and a pure heart".

Psalm 1v1 talks about those who "sit in the seat of mockers".

There are a lot of people who mock the Bible and its message, and laugh at the concepts of heaven and hell, sin and judgement, and who encourage others to sin too.

But as followers of Jesus Christ we should be going in a different direction, reading and thinking about God's word, the Bible.

In v2 it describes how we should be: "his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."

Peter challenged us as to what we spend most of our time thinking about. We can think about our problems, jobs, money, etc - or we can think about what God's word says about things. The Bible is full of wisdom and guidelines on how to live life to the full and get the best out of it. It's a good idea to memorise Bible verses and get its truth deep into our hearts and minds.

In v3, it says that a person who does things God's way is "like a tree planted by streams of water" and which is always bearing good fruit, and "whatever he does prospers". When our lives are rooted in God's ways and word, we can stand strong through all the storms which life throws at us.

Peter gave the illustration of a mother eagle which pushes her baby birds out of the nest when the time comes to help them to fly. They don't have any flying lessons first, but plummet down without having had any practice. But the mother then flies down and spreads her wings underneath the babies if they are unable to fly at first, and takes them safely back to the nest. She then repeats this until they are able to fly on their own.

God does the same for us when we trust Him - He watches over us and keeps us safe, but helps us to become stronger and able to face the challenges of life.

We need to choose how we will walk through life - either living God's ways and soaring with Him, praising Him and serving Him; or rejecting His ways and suffering the consequences, both in this life and after we die.

The preaching can be heard on the website at http://www.emmanuelgospelministries.org">www.emmanuelgospelministries.org under audio.

On Sunday (July 25), we are looking forward to the return of guest speaker Geoff Tucker from Visual Bible Journeys.

At 10.30 am, Geoff will be giving a multimedia presentation on 'Discipleship in the 1st century'. After a bring and share meal in the church he will give another presentation at 2.30 pm on the early missionaries Paul and Silas. All are welcome to join us. Geoff uses a mixture of photos, maps, charts, historical and archaeological evidence in his presentations, which were very much enjoyed on his last visit to us.