Thursday: Great Blessings 3

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth."

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Spring is coming, my dear friends, it really is. A reminder to turn those clocks ahead this weekend ... Spring forward.

Today is Thursday, and that is family day on this line. So please folks, pray for families, first the family of God, then your family and the families of others.

Great Gifts 3 Genesis 9: 1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." (NIV)

I have been so blessed when it comes to this gift. We have six kids, all grown, and we have a lot of grandkids, and God really takes care of them, and for this we are so thankful. I found out from you folks who responded to my request to name some of your best (earthly) gifts that, without question, the gifts had nothing to do with dollars, most were the neat things a spouse or one of your children or all of your children gave to you ... something made in school ... When I look at the things our kids made over the years and what they still do today they are great. Still to this day, the very best gifts our kids give us is that phone call and in most cases it is weekly ... Hi mom or hi dad ... just checking in, we are fine, how are you. I know that some parents never hear from their kids, or when they do it is only with bad news. Can you think about that for a minute? Your phone rings and the number on the phone is one of your kids calling and your heart starts pounding because the only time they call is when something goes wrong. Again, we are so blessed with the phone calls. And yes, they call when things go wrong, and that is good for we want to know so we can pray and help, but they also call when things are going well, or just to check on us. But without the great gift of children that comes from God, all these other things would not happen ... God is so good.

Great Gifts 3 2 Chronicles 7: 14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will HEAL THEIR LAND. (NIV)

In a time when our Nation seems to be going downhill ... ok, let me take out the seems and say: At a time when our Nation is going downhill, we need to be looking at the scripture I just listed. We need to get on our knees and humble ourselves to our Lord God. Do you think all that is going wrong today in this country would be going wrong if we all were living for God? This great nation was given to us by God. It was founded to have freedom of religion and not freedom from religion, and it was based on Christian Faith (those who worship through Jesus). We have drifted away from this great gift, a gift of a free nation, and it is slipping away, and if you have not noticed, it is slipping fast. I will write about this on another date. Today as I talk about great gifts, I just wanted to point out how great a gift this nation is. But we have messed up along the way. Today I ask all of you to pray again for this Nation, not for the stock market and for jobs, but to pray for the people to come back to Christ.

Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for our families, thanks for the gift of children and grandchildren, and thanks for taking care of them. And Lord, I pray that today people will humble and come to You before they pray and worry about the Nation. I pray today that you will forgive me for when I do not put You first in all things, and pray it never happens again. I pray that our President would start coming to You before he comes to the people. However, I pray that the Christians of this country, the Born Again people would start speaking out. Come back, Lord ... In Jesus name, Amen.

Be blessed and share those blessings with others ... love ya, dan.

PS. For those of you who called the house yesterday to check on us because I was late, from the bottom of my heart, thank you ... your love and concern is appreciated ... dan.