Wednesday: Jesus, becoming a teenager

Salvation Wednesday and a really good day to pray for all the unsaved ... Pray today that God uses us all to lead people to His feet to be saved. I want you to be real clear about something, you and I work for Jesus, we go and plant seeds of Love, Grace, Trust, and Salvation on minds of others, but we, hear me on this, we cannot save them. I might get in trouble from some for saying this, but I must put it out there ... I have been to churches where salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ is not even mentioned, no sign of an altar call as we often call them when a pastor gives a call for salvation at the end of a service ... Yet many times I have been to churches and also gospel concerts and have even seen those TV shows with Billy Graham and Benny Hinn and have even been to a service of Benny Hinn.

Once in a while I will hear someone, sometimes someone from the church, or the gospel group say something like this ... What a great service we had, a hundred people came forward and were saved.

Folks when it comes to salvation we are not to judge others, and that means both ways. We should not be saying so and so is not going to heaven, or in cases like this we should not be saying they came forward so they are saved ... Now brothers and sisters if we know those who have come forth we might after a few weeks or months be able to tell if they have taken Jesus into their hearts as their lifestyle will make a change ... A person cannot go from not knowing Jesus to knowing Him on a personal relationship and not see a change in that person.

I just needed to point that out on our Salvation Wednesday so that we know where we stand, we are workers in the fields of Harvest for Jesus. Jesus is the Savior, the one and only one ...

Dear Heavenly Father please help us this day to work for You and help to bring people to Your feet so that You may save them according to Your will. Lord help us to help You by opening doors for us in those fields ... Lord lead us to the Lost ... Lord please keep blessing this line, thanks for the blessings each day and the message each day ... In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

Jesus, becoming a teenager 2: Yesterday I asked you to please read Luke 2: 41/52 and I talked about what it might be like if we left a child behind like Mary and Joseph left Jesus behind in Jerusalem. Today I want to look at what happened when He was found.

Luke 2: 46 After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers. 48 When His parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to Him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." 49 "Why were you searching for me?" He asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (NIV)

Ok, let me look at this part just a tad ... After leaving Him behind, cutting out of town without their son and only missing Him after a day, and then taking another day to go back and even into the third day to find Him, they were worried ... Oh yes, but they should have had enough concern to have checked on Him before they left town ... But I talked about all of that yesterday ... Right now I want to put this conversation that occurred between Mary and her Son Jesus ... to my mother Margaret and her son Daniel ... Folks, did Jesus "talk back" to His mother here? Let me tell you that if my mother would have been looking for me for whatever reason, and made a statement to me about being worried, and I would have said to her "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know where I would be?" With that statement out of my mouth to my mother, I would have been slapped right across my big mouth ... and if my dad would have heard it, I would have gotten the slap by my mother and my backside warmed up a lot by Pop ... Now I am sure that Jesus might not have meant this the way it sounded, but according to my bible, it sounded a little like back talking and I went back to the King James Bible and it sounds the same way. I would love for you folks to weigh in on that one ...

Now the Bible does go on to say this in verse 50 But they did not understand what He was saying to them. (NIV) I would think that Jesus was thinking that they would know everything that was between Him and our Father, His Father in Heaven. And as we all know, regardless of how much we read and study our Bible, how many Bible studies we attend, how many sermons we preach or hear, we just will not understand it all until we get home to be with Jesus. We must remember we have a faith based religion, and our relationship, our personal relationship with Jesus, is also based on faith between Jesus and us ... But with all that said, at the very least a statement like that would have me eating some good old soap ... And I know this for a fact, this is not based on faith, I know this one first hand, or should I say, "right hand".

Just for the record, I do not think Jesus would sass His mother, but it sure did sound like it ... Of course some people think Jesus would never get mad, and that all will make heaven ... well we will talk about that later on, on this big, big bus trip ...

Time to tell you to remember to share your blessings, for indeed if you do and do it in faith, you will be blessed even more ... Love ya, dan.