Thursday 3/14/13 Strength 4

Dear Father in Heaven.  Thank You for a great night's rest and for waking us this morning.  All honor and glory to You that Bob Everhard has come through open heart surgery and is on the mend.  Please, Lord, lay Your healing hand on Stanley Rodkey as his heart has severe damage and he is weak.  Father, thank You for blessing the Catholics with a new Pope and today I pray for him, for You to give him wisdom, knowledge, and much love to share with others.  Please use him to bring thousands and thousands of people to Your feet to be saved.  Lord, the Catholic church has been saying it is time to come back, or time to come back to church.  Whichever does not really make a difference, for Lord, it is time that we come back to Your church, the Church of Jesus Christ.  And Father in Heaven, we all need to come back, and we need You back in schools and in our churches, and we need You more in the hearts of each of us.  Lord, come over me today, anoint me to do Your work.  Please, Lord, be with Harold today as he suffers in the loss of his wife, and be with Oliver and Sharon as they comfort their dear friend.  Lord, please keep watch over this line so it is not attacked by evil or anyone acting with our evil ones.  Lord, thanks for another beautiful day and the bright sunshine.  Father, as for me and my house, we love You, as for those on this line, I pray that they can say the same thing.  Lord, this might sound dumb to some, but each day, each day I want to fall in love all over again with You, I want the love to be strong and fresh and I would appreciate if You watch over me and protect me and anoint me as I share this Love of Yours and the Good News of Salvation with others.  And Father in Heaven, our son Matthew really needs Your touch.  In Jesus' name, I give honor and glory and praise as I ask my prayers in Jesus' name.  Amen.

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters.  It is a beautiful day, a nice bright day with the sun shining very bright here at the Southern Location of the North Pole.  I pray all of you are in love with Jesus regardless of what is listed over the door where you attend church.  I pray you all know it is not your church or the pastor that can get you into heaven, only Jesus.  But I also pray that you do attend a GOOD church, one where the preacher teaches the truth as it is in the Bible.  Today I ask you to pray for our Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ.  I ask that you pray for their new leader and that he is very strong in his teaching of love and salvation.  I watched yesterday as many folks did, at all those people gathered in Rome watching for that white smoke.  Then I watched as the crowd formed to see the new Pope.  I watched as they would show close-ups of some of the people and they showed some of some young nuns, and you could see my brothers and sisters, you could see on their faces the Love of Jesus, as they waited to see who would lead the church.  I am not Catholic and do not understand all the things that went on, but I could see one thing, I could see the love they have for Jesus.  It was so good go see an afternoon of television where Jesus was being talked about, and faith and love was being talked about and not news about someone shooting someone.  I am thankful for some dear Catholic friends who took Dolores and me to a special play at their church.  Brothers and sisters, we Christians need to stick together and be strong.  We need to love everyone, but we do not need to put our arms around those who are living a lie and embrace that lie.  So brothers and sisters, I want to start something today.  As you know, I started something when I asked all of you to tell someone you love them and tell them to pass it on.  Now I want you to be brave and when you tell them you love them and to pass it on, tell them it is time we get everyone to come to Jesus.  Find a way to say it, friends, and it might be a different way to different folks.  This is nothing new, folks, this is a command of our Lord Jesus.  (Mark 16:15)

Just a couple things and then to the message.  WE NEED SOME HELP NEXT WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON FOR THE FOOD  DISTRIBUTION:  We need the most help before the folks come for the food.  We need people who can come on Wednesday March 20th and be here by 2:00 PM to help set up.  The distribution is from 3 to 6 PM.  I will have something here for all of you to eat.

Next, our son Matthew really needs prayer.  Dolores and I also need your prayers.  Matthew is still in the hospital, has been there since the beginning of November, and the truth is, he should be admitted someplace more than likely for the rest of his life.  Thanks for understanding.  Please pray today for Stanley Rodkey as he has a damaged heart.  He needs open heart surgery and is too weak to have it.  Let me get to the message, Strength.

Strength 3/14/13 Day Four.

2 Corinthians 1:3 - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.  (NIV)

This week as I talk to you about strength, which I started out with

Isaiah 41:10 - So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  (NIV)

As I continue to talk to you about strength, Jesus had led me in many directions.  I am finding the bottom line that all of our strength comes from Him, all of it.  One of the big issues of strength that He provides us is to have the strength to fight off evil and stand for good.  In the scripture that God led me to today, it is one scripture that is showing us that He gives us strength by giving us comfort and compassion in times of our troubles and sorrows.  Dolores and I have leaned on this strength day after day after day with Matthew.  When you have children, you need God's help with them during the tender years, but we also know that our children over the years have also grown to know that we as parents still love them to come to us and discuss things with them.  It is so nice that most often the things are good and wonderful and for this we praise God.  But with Matthew, he really needs the touch of God, and folks, without God standing with us, I know we could not have handled this over the years.  I am sure there are people on this line that can relate to that, and that is why I don't mind sharing it.

There is something in this scripture that has also helped me, and I want to point this out to all of you.  God gives us strength in times of our troubles and sorrows, but He gives us it in abundance and in fact that He gives us this strength so that we have that abundance to share with others.  Each day I will close by telling you to share your blessings, and here, my dear brothers and sisters, we find another blessing we can share.  God in all his wisdom has given us the strength to comfort others in His Wonderful Name.  Brothers and sisters, as we are finding out this week, God has His hand on our strength, regardless of what that strength is. .. Time to wrap it up for today.

Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for the message and thanks for the strength.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Now go forth and share those blessings, and remember, the biggest blessing you can share is the love of our Lord Jesus ... So please, please share it, and please tell others to share it also.

Love ya (pass it on).  Pastor Dan.