Wed. 8/1/12 Reap What We Sow 3

Mark 4:9 - Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."  10 When He was alone, the Twelve and the others around Him asked Him about the parables.  11 He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!"  (NIV)

Dear Father in Heaven, please forgive us today, for me today of my sins and help me to repent and stay tight to You.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Salvation Wednesday, my dear brothers and sisters, and what a beautiful day it is/was as we push forward for our Lord Jesus Christ.  Salvation Wednesday and the day we pray for the unsaved and for God to use we who are saved to spread the word, the good news of Jesus Christ.  Please keep Bobbie Tucker and her family in your prayers as a decision has been made to take her dear mother Betty Deardorff off of life support.  Please keep our son Matthew in your prayers.  In short, we do not know where he is.  Prayer requests for Patsy Emig, for Dutch Webster, for Vicki, for Joe, for Jere, Ruth, Sarah.  Traveling protection for Grant and Wanda as they travel on vacation.

You Reap What You Sow (Day Three).  While God has given me many parts to this message, what He gave me yesterday did to me like so many of the messages He gives me.  I had no idea He was going to take me in that direction, but there is not a doubt in my mind that we must sow our own seeds.  Often our parents have sown some of them in the past, and they rooted in hard in some cases, but in still other things my parents taught me, I walked away from.  One was God, of course, but I came back as you know, yes, I was a "lost son."

Today, let's talk a tad about sowing some of the seeds so that others, like our children and grandchildren, might receive some of the benefits of those seeds.  Or depending on what you are sowing, what kind of seeds you are sowing you might not be setting a good example.  So let me start on this by saying if there were things I would do differently if I could go back in time (and of course you can't), I would surely set some better examples for my children to follow.  Folks, there are some things in life we should do our very, very best to get right the very first time we try it.  We need to be careful on how we plant seeds and not be sloppy with them.  I think I told you this already, but one thing I did not say, and do not like to hear, is this statement by a parent to a child ... "Do as I say and not as I do!"  More than likely your children and mine also remember much better what they remember you have done and not the things you have said.  Sort of like my message for last week.  When I preached it I could have just told our flock at the Bridges that Jesus fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish or I could show them.  When I showed them two fish and just five loaves of bread and even asked them, "do you think this would feed just those in the room today?"  Most will remember that.

Now brothers and sisters, Jesus wants us to follow in His footsteps, and we for sure should want to do just that.  But do we want our children to follow in our footsteps, and if so, are we sure that we have our feet in places where we would want our children to go?  Our Lord Jesus taught us in several ways.  He would preach, He would teach, He would teach in parables which is what we are learning about this week, and of course He taught us by example.  So for today I want you to think about those seeds you are going to plant. Let us look at our bodies and our mouths as two different kinds of seeds that we would be planting and of course there are more.  But think about it, if we want to set a good example for others to follow we must for sure watch where we go, and moreso, what we say.

Tomorrow we are going to take a deep look into this verse ...

Mark 4:11 - He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!"

If you look over this verse and read it over and over again it is hard to understand ... What is the secret, and why does God not want people to know this secret?  Please pray for me that I get it the way God wants me to get it out.

Dear Father in Heaven, help us this day in all we do.  Be with those on our prayer list and honor them according to Your will.  Lord, there are people out there today that do not understand salvation, please guide one of us to them so we might get them to Your feet to be saved.  I love You, Jesus, and I lift my prayer to Our Father through You, Jesus.  Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings, and after sharing them in faith, work for God and watch those blessings grow ... Love ya, Pastor Dan.