Tuesday Oct. 25, 2011 How To Start Your Day 2

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want!

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. What a beautiful morning here at the Southern Location of the North Pole... And old Santa and Mrs. Claus are starting to get very, very busy. We had the snow sleigh out and had the tanks filled with fuel and wow, that is like filling your fuel oil tank at home. We are ready to get moving. Folks, if you want to have a great time, have a wonderful meal, eat some famous sticky buns and see a good Christmas play, book in to Allenberry Playhouse and Resort Inns... Yes, I am giving them a plug today for they are very, very good to us. They donate all of the turkeys and hams for Christmas, last year 50 each. But on top of that, we get to be Santa and Mrs. C (I am Santa, thank you) and we get to sing and TELL PEOPLE THE REAL REASON FOR CHRISTMAS. Yes, the Heinze family are born again folks who do a great job with the Christmas play... And at Allenberry we are permitted to say MERRY CHRISTMAS, So today, may I be the first to say that to you... MERRY CHRISTMAS, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JESUS.

Tuesday and the day we pray for cures for those things like cancer and heart problems, etc. Speaking of cancer, the parents of "Baby Boy Noah" were here to our food bank last evening and said Noah has come home from the hospital for a short time and must go back. Again I also ask that you keep praying for Vicki as she has a full plate of health problems. Also pray for Tyler, and I have withheld the last name, but he seems to have walked from his family, pray he comes back.

How to start your day! Day 2: Psalm 23:1 - The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul, He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (NIV)

A good way to start your day is of course with prayer and we talked about that yesterday. Today I want to add in reading some scriptures from your Bible... You do not need to plan which one, for they are all good. You could just open it and read what God points out to you. That is what I did this morning, God pointed out this wonderful Psalm to me.

What a way to start a day, you read the 23rd Psalm and the first thing it tells you is this... "I shall not want!" Now God has not changed over the years, but some of the meanings of the words change. All of us or most all of us want something, Gosh, I would love a new Caddy, but that is not a need, and God takes care of our needs. So we get up in the morning and one thing we do not need to worry about is WHAT WILL WE EAT, OR WHAT WE WILL WEAR, for if we really look hard, you will find you are maybe like this... You open the door to the food pantry and you look in and it is lined with food, canned goods, peanut butter and jelly and lots of stuff, it is stuffed full of NOTHING TO EAT!! Tell me you have not thought that in the middle of the night when you get hungry and are looking for a snack. You have a pantry and fridge full of NOTHING TO EAT! Oh and how about this one, you are going out for an evening, maybe to church or maybe to dinner, whatever, and you get in your closet and you look around and you are standing there thinking I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR, and you have a whole closet full of NOTHING TO WEAR!

Brothers and sisters, God has blessed America over and over and over again, and still we have people right now marching on Wall Street, or should we call it sleeping in the park... These folks do not want to work as they think the people with money should just give it to them. Americans need to wake up and go to work, there are jobs out there for those willing to do them. Our Nation is blessed but right now in the South crops are rotting in the fields because Americans will not do that kind of work and the laws forbid those workers coming across the boarder from doing them. Even those folks who refuse to go to work, God sees that they have food. Folks, don't get me wrong here as there are people who need our help and cannot work as they are disabled and we need to take care of them.

God does provide our needs but often does it thorough the hands of others. So again I ask you that you might start the day with this statement in prayer to God. "God, You have given me another day and may I give it back to You by living to please You." And in living to please God you might want to help others. Today I want you to try something. Go to the sink, put one hand behind your back and wash the other one. Hard to do, wash one hand without the other... You see in life one hand washes the other and I am not talking about how those in Washington work, I am talking about how we need to work for God, we need to join in helping others.

So how are you going to start today? How about reading the 23rd Psalm over again... and then praying!!

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul, He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Dear Father in Heaven, forgive me for I am a sinner and in need of Your saving grace. Lord, I want to give this day back to You for You first gave it to me. Put me to work in some way for You today. Please act on our prayers today according to Your will and we give You thanks for that... In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth sharing those blessings and loving each other and loving the Lord more each day... love ya, Pastor Dan.