Thursday 9/13/12 Deny Yourself!

Dear Father in Heaven, Please forgive us of our daily sins and let us dig into this message with Your blessings please.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Good evening, my dear brothers and sisters.  It is Thursday and the day we pray for our families, schools, and all those who enter the schools.  Also today, a special prayer request for Pastor Kevin and Donna Brown, as they do missionary work in Sierra Leone.  If you want to read more about their mission and find out how really blessed we are, please check http://thebrownsinsierraleone.wordpress.com/.  This will 100% touch your  heart.  After reading this in the morning, God led me to this message this evening.

Deny/Denying Yourself!

Matthew 16:24 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.  26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the world, yet forfeits his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  (NIV)

Let me tell you a little bit about Pastor Kevin Brown.  I met Pastor Kevin a lot of years ago, when I was heading up the Transportation Department at Central Dauphin School District, and Pastor Kevin came in and applied for a job driving school bus.  He, along with his wife and family, had just moved to the area to pastor a small Baptist Church at 48th and Broadway Streets in the Lawnton area, just east of Harrisburg, PA, off of Derry Street.  You see, Pastor Kevin's flock could not afford a salary that would include health insurance or as I recall even pay him a living wage to support his wife and family.  I hired Pastor Kevin and he was a great bus driver, working his schedule around bus driving.  Pastor Kevin is a born again believer, and I mention that because not all pastors are.  Pastor Kevin helped me many a day s we would have prayer meetings in my office.  (Yes, in an office, in a public school.)  We called them "caring and sharing" meetings, and we prayed for a lot of people in that office and anointed a lot of people with oil.  Why did I mention all of this?  Well, you see, it fits the scripture that God pointed me to.

Matthew 16:24 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

Now remember I just told you that we are the disciples of today, and indeed, Pastor Kevin along with his wife Donna are true disciples of Jesus.  But look here, Jesus said "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself."  Let me tell you, when you want to preach and teach the Word of God so bad that you are working other jobs to support yourself and your family so to "get out the word" in my opinion you are denying yourself.  And there is not one doubt in my mind that he is still doing that.  You really need to go to that blog and read about the Browns.

But what about us?  Must we really deny ourselves to follow Jesus?  Folks, if we truly follow Jesus, if we are really born again believers, you have already made that change.  I can tell you right now, when you became a  Born Again Christian (and if you are not Born Again, you ARE NOT a Christian, PERIOD), your life changed, indeed, you gave up a lot of your old life and took on new things.  And of course if you are doing as Jesus commanded us to do, take the word to all corners of the world, you are indeed carrying the cross.  This is what Jesus is saying when He is quoted saying this ...

Matthew 16:25 - "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

You see, folks, this does not have anything to do with dying, it means we save our life as in being saved from sins.  The life we lost was our old life by giving up our sins.  In other words, we are a brand new person when we follow Jesus and our old life is gone.  Now a question, asked by Jesus.

Matthew 16:26 - "What good will it be for a man if he gains the world, yet forfeits his soul?  The man would be no good at all, he would be heading for Hell!

or What can a man give in exchange for his soul?"  He can give only of himself to Jesus, for Jesus took care of the rest on Calvary.  AMEN.

Dear Father in Heaven, please bless Pastor Kevin and Donna as they do your work in a far off land, please when this mission if over bring them home safe.  And Lord, today we want to pick up our cross and follow You.  Help us in doing just that, may we love on You and hold on tight to You.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

Now go forth sharing your blessings and talking to God and loving on Him as He loves on you.  And speaking of love, I love ya.  Pastor Dan.