Thursday January 5, 2012

When His parents saw Him, they were astonished. His mother said to Him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxious searching for you." "Why were you searching for me?" He asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what He was saying to them.

Good Thursday Evening, my dear brothers and sisters. Another beautiful, wonderful and very busy day. We were so blessed. We started our day with prayer, and then after those morning chores, we took four of our Yorkshires to the groomer and then went to Sonshine Ministries, where our son Matthew lives. Today was Matthew's 43rd birthday and we took him out for lunch. Thanks for all your prayers for him, he seems to be doing better. Please pray for Allie, who just had another surgery. Please check the end of the message for a complete update from her parents. Also pray for the family of the 23 year old tow truck operator who was killed the other day while picking up a car. Folks, we need to pray for those men and women who make their livings picking up cars and trucks that have mechanical problems. At one time we owned five tow vehicles. It was always a dangerous job working along that fast moving traffic.

As we journey on, let's look at today's scripture. Luke 2:48 - When His parents saw Him, they were astonished. His mother said to Him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxious searching for you." 49 "Why were you searching for me?" He asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" 50 But they did not understand what He was saying to them. (NIV)

I reviewed a part of yesterday's scripture just to get you up to speed. You will recall that Mary and Joseph had left Jerusalem with friends and family after the Feast of the Passover to head back home. Jesus was not with them and they just figured He was with the group someplace. But after about a day and they had not found Him, they turned back to Jerusalem to look for The Boy Jesus. Yesterday we learned that after three days they found him in the temple courts among teachers and listening and asking questions.

Let me pause there and pick up on something that God just gave me as I typed that last line. Even at His young age, Jesus here is setting an example for us to follow today. What is it, you ask? Let's look at that last line again. "After three days they found him in the temple courts among teachers and listening and asking questions." What was this young man, Jesus, doing? He was LISTENING and ASKING QUESTIONS. Even at my age, we should be using our ears a lot more and our brain a lot more as we listen to others, and then we need to ask questions and I do not mean this just in our walk with Jesus. You see, Jesus set examples for us to live by, live by in our daily living, not just when we are in Church or Sunday School, but in all we do. All examples of living in the Bible are set for our use today, use in our everyday living. Even in your family, with your spouse and your children, learn to listen and if you do not understand something, ask questions. We do not learn anything new by always being the one who is putting out the information. A good example of that is just why teachers in our schools and pastors in our churches must go to seminars or classes set for us to further our education. And for sure we must be open, very open to listen to God, who does talk to us, He really does. Although not nearly often enough, Dolores and I like to go out on a Sunday Evening for a service or gospel concert. The word from our Lord found in the Bible is the same day after day, but He, our Lord God, keeps opening it up in different ways. As an example of that, I just point out to you, what He just did for me on this line of scripture.

Now for that big question I asked yesterday, did Jesus talk back to His parents when He said this. "Why were you searching for me?" He asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" Mary and Joseph had been looking for Jesus for three days, and were upset, worried, the Bible uses the term "anxiously searching."

I could hear it now, my mamma saying to me... Danny, where have you been, I have been worried about you, and my answer would have been something like this. Don't you know I would be with my friends at the "Luce Street Playground"? Now it would have depended on my voice tones if I would have gotten my mouth slapped or just talked to about it. As a rule I left my mamma know when I would leave the house that I was going to my paper route, but in the summer I would hang out with the kids that lived along my paper route, not those in my neighborhood. I would have really shocked mamma if I would had said to her, did you not know I would be at Church? (Then I would have gotten my mouth washed with soap for lying.

Anyway, the way it was written in the Bible, it looks like our savior Jesus might have just talked back to His mother. We just do not know the tone of His voice, or what maybe the writer of the gospel did not hear. I mean Jesus might have, and I think He would have, put His loving arms around His mother and just made it sound like a loving question. Yes, the way it tells us in my version of the Bible, I would say, Jesus did sass His mother a tad, and I am sure if Jesus thought about it later, He would have gone and talked to His parents about it.

Another message I get out of this is that once something is out of your mouth you cannot put it back in, and while some might think you said something that was ok, others might take what you say as offensive or wrong. So please run past your brain, and through your heart, what is about to come out your mouth. In closing would it not be nice to know that your child would like to spend more and more time learning about God... Even Jesus, the Son of God, wanted to learn more and more and our Savior Jesus always lead by example. Let's as we go into this New Year, learn to follow the lead of Jesus.

Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for the great day with our son Matthew, and Lord, please keep blessing this line and answering our prayers according to Your will for us... I love You, Jesus, and I pray that all others on this line love You also. In Jesus' name,  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, do not be a ditto head with Rush Limbaugh, although I think he is a good guy, but be that Ditto Head with Jesus.

So in closing out today and asking you once again to share your blessings, I want to make this statement and then ask you one question.

I love Jesus very much. How much do you love Him, and will you say it to others? I love ya,  Pastor Dan.

Later today, the great escape. I seem to be running late this week. Now an update on Allie from her mother...

We just met with Dr. Yang. Allie did well. The surgery lasted 4 hours. Dr. Yang started in the upper lobe and found 9 lesions. One of the larger lesions at the base of the upper lobe was very complicated and took over an hour for him to remove. It was located between two large blood vessels and required careful resection. The middle lobe contained 2 lesions and he removed both of them. The lower lobe was another complicated area with a larger lesion. As he tried to remove the larger lesion he found at least 14 others and rather than try to resect them all, he opted to remove the entire lower lobe. He said when they reinflated the lung, it filled the entire cavity, which is good. We are waiting for Allie to wake up in ICU so we can visit.

We are trusting God with the rest of the details. We are keeping the faith that God can make Allie cancer free. Dr. Yang did his part, so now God can do His part.
God bless and thank you so much to everyone who has been praying and for your continued prayers. As one prayer warrior reminded me, we need to KEEP THE FAITH!!
Love, peace and blessings, Tom, Zina, Allison and Andy