Tuesday 3/12/13 Strength 2

Good Morning, Dear Heavenly Father, thanks for the rain we are receiving this morning, and thanks for getting us through the night.  Thanks for hearing our prayers, and thanks for protecting us, and thanks for Your Son Jesus who died to set us free.  Thanks in advance for this day and for how blessed we will be during this day.  As we walk forward, help us always to walk in Your light and not fall by the wayside.  Be with our families and friends and please also protect this line.  In Jesus' wonderful name, I give thanks and pray.  Amen.

Good morning, my dear brothers and sisters.  It is a beautiful rainy day here at the Southern Location of the North Pole, and one of the nice things about rain, besides feeding the ground and filling my well is, I do not need to shovel it.  Men, right now you can get your wife a wonderful Easter gift that keeps on giving.  Plastic snow shovels are on sale, and they are much lighter than the old steel ones, so next year when she shovels snow, it will be lighter on her back.  What do you think, guys?  Yes, ladies, I am just kidding.  (I think.)  Please pray today for Ruby, Vicki, Eleanor, Bob, Sharon, Vicki, Dolores, Patsy, Burt, Barbara, another Barbara.  Please pray for a cure to be found for cancer, and please pray that our nation comes back to God.  Time to get to my message on Strength.

Strength 3/12/2013 Strength Day Two.

James 1:12 - Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.  13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me."  For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.  15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.  16 Don't be deceived, my dear brothers.  17 Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change likes shifting shadows.  18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created.

Brothers and sisters, yesterday I talked about strength and how my brother and others were very strong because they lifted weights.  Today we still have a lot of people working out and some are really strong.  As baseball season comes in, you will see those long ball  hitters standing up to bat and see their big strong arms.  God gave people, all people, muscles on their bodies and some have used those muscles and moved them into a talent that God has lent to them.  Brothers and sisters, we pull all of our real strength from God, or we should.  I guess there re people out there who love to pull their strength from evil.  When that is done, their strength will surely lead to death.  With God, when we pull our strength from Him, we have eternal life.

There are many times that we need strength in the form of muscles to do things, but more often, much more often, we need strength to fight off evil, and to walk with the Lord.  Each day we face evil in our daily walk.  Even sitting at our computers trash can find its way right onto our screens if we are not careful.  Men need to pull strength sometimes when just going out for lunch.  Say, men, you are at your office and you are one who really loves the Lord.  Guys in the office want to go out for lunch and you decide to go alone, after all, you might get the chance to witness for God by just asking to say grace before you eat.  On the way, one of the others says, hey, guys, let's go to Hooters and eat wings.  What are you going to do?  Are you going to say, please take me back, for I am not going into that restaurant.  Or would you tell them, listen, guys, I will wait in the car, or would you just give in to the evil and go with them?  This is where we need to pull strength from God.  We need to ask Him to give us wisdom.  A chance to witness here, by just walking away from this.  If you are not far from work, you can walk back, but if you love the Lord, you are not going in.  You know full well why the other men wanted to go to Hooters.  If the question comes up at work, do you want to go out to eat, your next question should be, where are we going?  Explain to the others that you love God and yo respect women and you are not going to that place.  Pull on the strength from God when you have to make decisions like this, and this one might be the easy one you will face that day.

Brothers and sisters, you also need to pull on strength from God when driving.  You need to put that phone down and drive.  Some people are so afraid they will miss something on their phone or text messages they check them while driving.  Put the darn phone in the back seat, most areas have laws against texting while driving, and surely if yo do this texting and reading text messages while driving someday you will smash up your car and maybe hurt yourself or others.  There is not a day goes by that the devil and his evil buddies will not try and get to you, and you need to pull on the strength from our Lord God, as it tells us in the Bible, to ward off this evil.  You need to get started each day by asking God to protect you from evil ... and let's start right now by asking God to walk with us this day and better still to ask Him to help us to walk with Him.  Let's pray.

Dear Father in Heaven, each day we are tempted by Satan and his workers and we ask this day that Yo protect us from evil and walk each step with us giving us the strength to fight off evil.  Giving You honor and glory, Father, for giving us that protection and strength.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Now go forth, calling on the name of Jesus to give you strength, and also ask Him for help in sharing your blessings.

Love ya, Pastor Dan.