Good Afternoon, my dear brothers and sisters. It is really another nice day here at the Southern Location of the North Pole. We are expecting rain, and praise the Lord, it is January, and we do not need to shovel the rain. (Come on, Spring!) I promise Jesus each winter that if He gets me through the winter I will never complain about the heat of summer. The real truth is I just love spring. I love to see the new birth that spring brings. Each spring as I watch the new growth I wonder in my little mind how anyone can not believe in God. Today, Salvation Friday, is the day we pray for all those working the fields of harvest for our Lord, and also pray for Salvation for the unsaved, those who have been born only once. Also pray for all who are saved, are born again, to be used by God to help lead in the lost. We are awaiting our animal veterinarian to come to the house. One of our senior dogs, Angie, our Yorkie with a tail, we call her, will be going to doggie heaven before the day is out. This is always a hard job for us to do as we take in senior dogs so they can live out their lives here with us, and so often we need to make this final choice for them. So pray for us this afternoon as we go through this hard part of the walk with senior dogs. The love we get from this old dog is just so loving. It is so nice when I, and I don't do it often, but I go into my room to take a nap and four or five dogs and a cat or two come with me. It is the same at night. Later today or tomorrow I am going to send out an email update on Carry The Light Ministries. It is a copy of the letter we send out after our big Christmas push. Some of you will get the hard copy. We want you to know that we appreciate your support, and praying for us is one of the best kinds of support you can do for us. Writing the daily message is the second longest running part of Carry The Light Ministries. Our singing outreach to senior homes is the longest. Look for the ministry update coming later. Now let me get to the message.
Romans 12:9 - Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, "It is mine to avenge, I will repay," says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (NIV)
Yes, brothers and sisters, it is the same scripture as I used on Wednesday. I really only got through Romans 12:10.
Romans 12:11 - Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (NIV)
Brothers and sisters, the Bible tells us when working for God, never be lacking in zeal. Let me put it this way, when working for anyone, never be a slacker, in fact, so many people are slackers in life, some don't even try and get jobs, others get jobs and do not give the people they work for a full day of work for the full day of pay. God knows if you are a slacker, and He surely does not want people going out half-heartedly with the Good News Message we are to be taking out. When you are out working for the Lord, or anyone else as far as that goes, work hard, work with a smile on your face, enjoy what you are doing, and stop complaining. I am sure that if God wanted to complain about us, He could find a lot of things that did not please Him in the way we live. When you are telling the good news about Jesus, tell it like you believe it, have faith in it and live it. Tell people that Jesus died on the cross for you as He also did for me. Walk in His light daily. I know of folks who have a lot of Bibles, lots of different versions of the Bible, but do not read any of them, or they read them and don't follow them. I know of people who pray for things but do not do one thing to help God along, and as I have said before, all can do something when it comes to working for God.
The Bible tells us to be joyful in our hope and patient in affliction. We are also to be faithful in prayer. If I were to ask all of you right now this question, and okay, I am asking it ... DID YOU PRAY YET TODAY? Think about it, folks, you do not need to tell me the answer, for I know there are some days I have started the day and did not pray, or started a concert and did not pray. Brothers and sisters, we need to ask Jesus to be involved in all things we do. If it is not worthy of asking for His help, then it is not worthy of our doing it. SOMEONE SHOUT AMEN!! Let me move on ...
Romans 12:13 - Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (NIV)
We are to share with God's people who are in need!! Who are God's people? Do you need to be saved, or born again to be one of God's people? NO!! We are all God's people, all born in the image of God and given free will. How are you using your free will today? For good? Or for not so good?
Each day I close I ask you to share your blessings. Everyone can do just that, there is no one on this line who is not blessed in some way and that means all on this line can share those blessings. The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Let me tell you that it is much easier to rejoice with the happy than to sit and mourn or talk to people about problems. God knows all of this, and if we truly love Him and have faith in Him, we can do this, you can do this. I have done it.
Romans 12:14 - Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (NIV)
Live in harmony with each other. Folks, in some families the family members cannot even do this, let alone strangers. Folks, we who are Christians need to be the go-getter in this. But let me point out here, in many churches, and I touched on this the other day, in many churches they do not have harmony in the church itself. Even the disciples of Jesus, one of those went against Jesus, think about it. Again, we who love Jesus need to extend to others that we want to live in harmony with them. This scripture should have been used years ago when the big city churches would not open their doors and welcome in the new neighbors of changing neighborhoods. In other words, those big churches with "white" congregations did not swing open wide the doors of the church and welcome in their new "black" or "Spanish" neighbors. Think about that and tell me I am not right on it. I know, I was raised in Harrisburg, and I saw it happen. Maybe it was those folks that were funding the big churches were too proud to ask in those that did not have money! The next part of that scripture is be willing to associate with people in low positions. Have you ever been to a party in a nice big house where lots of people came? Maybe you noticed that no one invited their "trash folks." I have been there, brothers and sisters. But I have changed, have you? How we treat the least of those among us is how we treat Jesus!! The Bible also tell us not to be conceited. Please address yourself on that one. We had nicknames for folks that were conceited, we call them "goody two shoes." Don't know why, but we did.
Romans 12:17 - Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, "It is mine to avenge, I will repay," says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (NIV)
As we finish up the scripture for today, please take a good look at it and digest it really well. As Christians it is not always easy to do just what our good Lord wants us to do. But as Christians if we want to stay in good standing with our Lord Jesus we must do our very best carrying out His Commandments and rules for us. Hey, sorry, I am just the messenger, God made the rules. I know they are hard to follow sometimes, and these are some tough ones. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Think about that when someone cuts you off in traffic, would you not just like to pass them and cut them off or even give them the (no, I am not saying it)? The Bible tells us to do what is right in the eyes of everybody, and that is true, do what is right in front of everybody. Now if we would want to make it sound better, let us just do what is right in the eyes of Jesus and that should be good enough for everyone, and that is what I mean when we talk about following in the footsteps of Jesus and walking in His light. Jesus is the Light of the World. The Bible also tells us not to take revenge but let God handle the wrath. Let God do what He is to do, and let us follow His commands and do what He wants us to do. The Bible tells us if our enemy is hungry we are to feed him. If he is thirsty, we are to give them something to drink. In short, the Bible tells us that the only way to overcome evil is by doing good. Overcome evil with Good ... Sounds like a plan to me, how be we put it into our daily practice?
Dear Father, sometimes in this world Your commands for us sound very hard to do, and Father, it is very hard to follow in Your footsteps. Lord, I love You and I want to walk in Your light. Lord, the farther we get off the path You light for us, the deeper we get into the darkness of evil. Help us to stay on Your light path. Forgive us when we sin and help us, dear Lord, with our walk with You. Help us also, Lord, to live for God, and forgive those who commit evil against us, help us to bless them with Good, Your Goodness, Lord. Help those who are not saved to come to You and use we who are saved to help bring in the lost to You. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.
Now go forth and share your blessings.
Love ya, Pastor Dan.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment