January 20, 2011 Temptations 4

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord you God and serve Him only"'.

Good Thursday, pray for families and for schools day, on this pray and message line. More snow expected at the Southern Location of the North Pole tonight into tomorrow morning. Not much, but enough to get that plow truck out again. Pray for the safety of those that must travel on that snow and please as you pray for our schools, pray for those school bus drivers. Do you know that in most cases your school bus drivers, who has up to 90, yes 90, children behind them, have your children in their care more than any one teacher in a day's time, after they are out of elementary school, where in most cases they have one teacher all day. I always found it amazing that teachers, and it is a very hard job, but teachers could not control a student facing them, and had to be taken from class were put on the school bus at the end of the day and put behind the driver. When the roads are bad, bus drivers are expected to go, and let me remind all of you, that very first inch of snow on the road is the worst and snow around 30 to 35 degrees is also the worst. Be careful and please pray for those school bus drivers, and while you are at it, pray for all bus drivers, those city and over the road drivers go on schedules also.

I have another correction on the names of the young men from yesterday. DeVaughn Lee, was spelled wrong on my correction list. Again, please keep these families in your prayers.

I have been asked by many people about how Dolores is doing now that she is home from the hospital. I would love to tell you that she is doing better, but the truth is she went backwards while in the hospital. They did a lot of PT and after doing some of it, then they did the X-rays, and they also did an MRI of her back and neck and said the results were normal. If you have seen Dolores and how she is bent over and twisted, you just know that someone read that one wrong. Next week she is going for another nerve block, they help for a while. We are really trusting that God is going to take away the pain, so she, like a good worker for God, just keeps pushing on. Her twisted fingers can still make that piano sing... PRAISE GOD, FOR SHE IS IN HIS HANDS. Thanks for asking.

The Big Trip 6-4 Temptations 4: Luke 4:8 - Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord you God and serve Him only"'. (NIV)

I worked on part of this scripture yesterday but did not get to complete it as I talked about salvation and safety for our youth.

Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only sounds like one thing that would be very, very easy to do, and folks, it really is, but there is a very fine line when it comes to how we handle our things, our positions, our junk, our stuff, our money, etc. Worshiping does not mean that we need to be getting on our knees and praying to our things of that list I just went through. I think all of us in one way or another tend to do one thing and that is try and build up some treasures here on earth and we really should not. The Lord warns us about building treasures on earth as we should be building them in Heaven.

To help us get around worshiping other things or other people, I think the really best way to do it is be in constant worship with Jesus. CONSTANT, you might be asking me? How can one be in constant worship with the Lord when we have work to do, working for a living and working for others? Well, let me address the working things, for we all should be working for a living, in fact God is very clear about that, say "Those who will not work, should not eat." Now I know there are people who cannot work and there is a big difference between those who cannot work and those who will not work. Those who cannot work, need to be taken care of by God's people, yes, we should be taking care of them and not our governments.

Ok, so how do you go to work, sit at your desk, and do your work while you worship God? Oh, come on, folks, you sit at your desk doing work for the boss and still do some texting or talking on that cell phone. Maybe not all of you, but some of you do. Here is a plan, take your In Touch, or Our Daily Bread or one of a number of daily things to work, put one in your desk drawer with a small Bible. When it is break time, read a bit from your Bible instead of hanging out at the coffee pot, or read it before your start up time and then share what you read at the coffee pot. You can also be silently praying when working. Even us old guys can still do that, in fact I do a lot of praying on the road, after all, the older I get the more prayers I need to drive, and I am a good driver, thanks to Jesus.

The more you worship our Lord Jesus, the less time you might have to get caught in a trap of worshiping others or things. Again, worshiping something does not mean you need to be on your knees in front of it. Most of you know I like vehicles, and I have had a couple in my life time. We give some away once in a while and gosh, we get more. We give away food, and gosh we get more. Tomorrow we will talk about that, today I just want you to watch how you handle your things that I mention and you all know what I am talking about. I mean some of you might have a TV show that you are not going to miss for any reason, but if you cannot walk away from it to help others or to do something else, then you might be near that thin line. And folks, it is a thin line. I think that a lot of people worship money, and then again, a lot of us don't have any to worship (Amen to that one). But if we trust the Lord, He will take care of us.

In the scripture today and the same for yesterday, we found the devil trying to get Jesus to worship him. Again we see that Jesus does not just tell us what was written, but He sets the example for it by not worshiping or bowing down to the devil. Folks, I might ask the question, if in some way the old devil or one of his workers, and there are many, would ask you if you wanted a million dollars cash and said all you need to do is just tell me you love me more than Jesus, would you do it? Careful here with your answer, for some will be saying, if I tell devil worker that I love him more than Jesus and then get the money I can then pray to be forgiven and give Jesus ten percent. I mean I know people who have promised the Lord 25% if they were to hit the big buck drawing.

Folks, while Jesus does want some of our things, he wants them from our heart, and folks, the very first thing that Jesus wants is us. Then He wants us to give and be happy about it. Tomorrow we are going to talk a lot more about that. In closing, let me put it this way... Worship Jesus and be thankful for all the things you have, for if they are good, they came from God. Don't worship what God gave You, worship Him, the one who gave it to you... AMEN.

Dear Lord, I guess I rambled a tad this morning, my thoughts are, well, on a bunch of stuff, and Lord, I believe that is why You gave me what You did to write, You once again directed it right at me. Thank You, Lord, for doing that, I will try really super hard not to cross that line. Lord, we all want to worship You and praise You and give You all honor and glory for deep down we know it all came from You if it is good. Help us not to cross that fine line and not even walk on it, but stay with You daily.... always... In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth and share those blessings. Love ya, Pastor Dan.