March 8, 2010 The Cost

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. What a beautiful morning here at the Southern Location of the North Pole. Not a cloud in the sky and the sun and The Son are both shining beautiful... PRAISE THE LORD...

Today is Monday and the day we pray for our leaders (yes, even if you did not vote for them), and it is also the day we pray for our veterans, our military, our police & firefighters, and those EMT's, ambulance drivers and attendants and the pilots who fly the skies on medical missions. And not just the chopper pilots but also those single engine pilots and owners who use their planes for those mercy missions.

Today I could add a page full of people who need health prayers at The Bridges, so please just pray for the health of the folks at The Bridges. Also we all remember Baby Ally who we prayed and prayed for at birth and up through her very young years and last week we prayed for her eyes. I did not get an update on her as of yet, but today we are going to add another baby to our list. Her name... Baby Clara, and if you want to read about her, please check in at the following website. www.caringbridge.org/visit/claraplumstead. I just got this in and did not look at it myself. Our wonderful waitress at Isaacs' (Cindy) where we eat most often after church on Sundays gave us the information. Also please pray for our ministry partner, Pamela Bower, as she sees a surgeon about surgery for breast cancer..

PRAISE REPORT... Yes, from Doug Boyer who not too long ago had a very bad stroke, and God has healed him... Yes, restored him to full health. I am going to ask Doug to write something about his healing by our Lord Jesus and I will tag it to a message as soon as I get it. On this line we do not praise God enough. We pray for healing and then do not hear back about the results of God's will being done. Folks, we need to praise God for His work in our lives and we need to do it even more often than asking for things.

The Cost: Luke 14: 25 - Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said:
26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." 27 "And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." (NIV)

In everything we do there is a cost to it... EVERYTHING, I say, has a cost! While often we think about cost always being in terms of dollars and cents (ok forget the cents on today's market) but we think of all things costing money. And in most cases it does relate down to money. You want a car, it costs money and not just for the car, remember all the taxes and fees when you purchase it, new or used. If you want a house, you will pay for it regardless if you buy or rent. If you want to sit on something in the house like a chair, more money, even if you buy it used. Again, almost everything that you have, or do, has a price tag relating to dollars. In fact if you can think of anything that you do that does not cost in terms of money, let me know...

In our scripture for today we find our Lord telling us what the cost might be to follow Him and to be a disciple for Him. Now while He does not point out anything that relates to dollars in this scripture we will look more into those costs as the week unfolds. But today, let's look at a few things here...

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Here we find Jesus telling us that to come to Him we must hate our own family, our parents, our spouse, our children, our brothers and sisters. Wait a minute, is this not the same Jesus that told us to love our neighbors? Why, yes it is. So, let's get a term straight right now. What Jesus is saying here is we must put Him, above all others... Let's take a look at Matthew 10:37, and again, this is in the words of Jesus.

Matthew 10:37 - "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (NIV)

So while Jesus is putting it to us very, very hard that we must love Him most of all, and even uses the word "hate", he really wants us to love, just love Him most of all... I remember way back in my Sunday school days, back when the streets were still dirt, and our teacher was talking about loving Jesus, he (our teacher) told us we must love Jesus above our parents and I told that teacher point blank I loved my mamma more. The teacher tried to explain to me that it was really a different kind of love and left it at that. But you know what, that teacher was really wrong. It was not a different kind of love at all and still is not. Love coming from the heart is love, (not sex) and in my own words love is the deep caring for others including not just Jesus and your family but also your friends and of course your neighbors; however, that love needs to be stronger and deeper for our Lord Jesus. And folks, if you love Jesus more than anyone else, more than everyone else, those that are in number two spot will just not mind. If you want to question someone on that, just ask my wife, or my kids or others who really know me deeply. The more and more I love Jesus, the more and more I love others, even those who really do not like me at all. While I care if others like me or love me, I am not going to get upset about it, for I know my deep feelings for others even when we tough it out on other things.

I know this beautiful young lady really well that works really hard and that causes some folks to talk behind her back and dislike them in the office she works in. My advice to this beautiful lady is to just keep loving Jesus, loving those in the office, work hard as you can for your Lord and those who hired you, and love everyone even if they don't love you. You see if you are loving Jesus and working hard you will always come to the top. Sort of like cream in a bottle of milk (back in the old days when you had a bottle), the cream always came to the top. And folks, it still does. So folks, do not worry about those talking behind your back, do not get involved in it, just do your work, loving the Lord, and watch your love grow for others... Amen.

Dear Father in Heaven... PRAISE YOU, PRAISE YOU. For healing Doug and my wife Dolores and for caring for Matthew, and Lord, so many others who we do not take time to praise You about. So Lord, today I want to say thank You. For watching over Baby Ally, and now, Lord, we ask You look after another baby who we are giving over to You... Heal her please in the name of Jesus. And Lord, for all on our prayer list we pray in Jesus name and we will give You the honor and glory... Amen.

Folks, as you pray today for our veterans, please remember they are not all old men with a few old women, our veterans today are as young as 18 and some very much disabled. Now go forth, loving Jesus above all else and all others and sharing the blessings He gave to us. Love ya, Pastor Dan.

Carry The Light Ministries
16 Dewalt Drive
Mechanicsburg, Pa. 17050
Phones Home 717 691 8200 Cell 717 991 0754
icarrythelight4God@msn.com