Thursday: Martin Gets a Bath 4

Repent, and turn to God!

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Yes, family day, and you all are my family (just don't all come for dinner at once!). However, one family at a time is always welcome. Maybe we should have a get together for a picnic, I will think about that for next summer. Pray for families today. We all know a family or more that needs prayers. I want to offer up these families... Breneman, Saylor, Lehman, Lehman, Lehman, Davis, Lamparter, Bradshaw, Otto, Crockett, Orner, Mayeski, Wyslocki, Boyer, John Harris High School class of 59 family, Glenvale Church of God family, and of course the family of God.

Martin Gets a Bath 4: Speaking of Martin getting a bath, Martin and Michael will be heading to the doggie beauty parlor at 8 this morning.

Acts 3: 17 - Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. 18 But this is how God fulfilled what He had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. 19 REPENT, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20 and He may send the Christ that was appointed for you. (NIV)

You know, my dear brothers and sisters, the more you read the scriptures, the more you can get out of them. Each time I look at the scriptures God opens my eyes even more. If He would have opened them all at once I would have been so overwhelmed that I would not have been able to handle it. Yes, we need to grow in Christ. I confess here that over the years I have gone to God to be forgiven of my sins and sometimes I repented and, well, other times I just messed up on the repentance part of it. Oh yes, God forgives our sins, and we should repent, BUT WAIT A MINUTE. According to these words and what God is giving me this morning,WE NEED TO REPENT FIRST. Before we come to God to be forgiven of our sins, we need to repent. Do you notice in Acts 3: 19 it says, Repent, and turn to God. It could have said, turn to God and then repent. It is lined up the way it is for a reason. We need to repent first. I have told you this before and it fits in here so I will tell it again. I had one brother, just one, his name was Leonard and he was about 3.5 years older them me. One day about 7 years ago, Leonard called me and told me he was going to die. Of course, my answer was, hey brother, we are all going to die. He said Danny I have cancer and I was told I have six months to go, and then he said, I don't know if I am going to get into Heaven. I told him I would be up to see him within the hour. I went up and we sat and talked and cried some, we talked about his cancer that was just found and it was really bad. Leonard was a smoker, starting at the age of 14 and never stopping. We talked about the Bible and how mamma taught us about Jesus. My brother was not back to church since he was about 16, but mamma had laid that ground work. He had her Bible. We went over all the steps to heaven and we prayed for his salvation through Jesus. Then I had to tell him he must repent from sins, and my dear brother was living with his X wife and they had not been married again. I said, and I am telling you right now, we cannot live in sin, daily sin, that is the same each day, we MUST REPENT. I told Leonard that he needed to get out of this daily sin. Three days later (three day waiting period in Pa.) - Yes, three days later in the living room of their farm home, I married them. Two months later my brother was called home, he did not get the six months that the doctors said he would have.

Brothers and sisters, this is a very bold statement by me this morning, but the Bible tells us to repent. If we do not repent from our sins and we do not give up our sins, why then should we even expect our Lord Jesus to be cleaning us from our sins? If we are living in sin as my brother was by not being married to the lady he was living with or one of thousands of other sins, are we being forgiven? If your answer is yes, and I believe we are, did it do any good since we were sinning as we were being forgiven? Let me say that again... Did it do any good to be forgiven since we were sinning as we were being forgiven? So let's get it right, or at least try our very, very best to do it right. We need to get the horse ahead of the cart, so to speak. Let's do our very best to get it right. Lets pray.

Dear Lord, Good Morning to You. Please Lord, we want to thank You for forgiving us, and we want to thank You for our food, and clothes, and the air we breathe. We give thanks for the water, and for all the good things You give us. You have said You would supply our needs, but You do so much more. You heal our bodies and You heal our minds and You heal our souls... Help us to get it right and get to repenting first. Thank You so much, and Lord, please look at our prayer list for families and look first at healing and bringing together the family of God. Help us to repent and follow Jesus the way we should, and not just tell others. Let us go on living for You, and not just say we are a Christian, let us prove it to the world. Let us show others how they should live, but please Lord, let it begin right at home, in our very own home... In Jesus' name, Amen.

Tomorrow we wrap it up, we talk once more about getting rid of our sins, and tomorrow we talk about repenting from the sins and what we can do in the place of those sins. Ok, time to get going and remember all, share those blessings, and believe me, believe the word of God, He will heap up your blessings if you share them... love ya, dan.