Dear Father in Heaven: Thanks for another wonderful day, thanks for the bread that was given to the food pantry, and Lord, thanks for the help You sent us today to handle jobs around our home. Dear Lord, thanks for blessing this line and thanks for watching over all those who ask You. Thanks for hearing our prayers and we do pray You will answer them according to Your will. Help us to understand that Your will for us is always better than our will. Your Love is so deep that it flows for all. Thanks for all those firefighters who were standing in the cold taking care of traffic today. I know this goes on worldwide, thanks for taking care of them. Please be in our schools and touch each person who enters the schools and also the school buses. Lord Jesus, I love You. Thanks for listening, and I do lift ll this to You in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Good Thursday evening, my dear sisters and brothers (ladies first this evening). What a great day, up early today, and went to our local Giant food store and picked up the bread. (This we get often.) We brought it home and put it in our freezers. Listen to this, we just went through Easter and our Easter distribution and our freezers are FULL!!! I had purchased hams last week, and this week chickens were on sale. (Yes, dead ones.) So I purchased 16 of them to have in case people came for food and do not eat ham (we give food to folks of all religions). God is so good, He really, really is, I get more and more amazed each day, and sisters and brothers, I fall deeper in love with Him each day. After the store trip, we took three of our Yorkies to the groomer, then home. Ministry partners Grant and Wanda came and helped with work all day long. We had a great time, they worked and I watched! Again, I just tell you this to keep you up to date on the ministry that so many of you support.
Please pray today for our schools and all who enter the doors, and remember the school buses and all who enter them. Now I need to get to the message on Sorrow.
Thursday 4/4/2013 - Sorrow.
2 Corinthians 1:3/5 - Praise be to 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)
On Monday and Tuesday (one message) I wrote about SUFFERING, on Wednesday it was LONELINESS and today, Thursday, I am writing about SORROW. I am sure you will see how they tie together. Some of my examples might be nearly the same.
Sorrow, have you ever had a time of sorrow in your life? I can answer that one for you by saying Yes to my question. I can look way back to my days of childhood, back when the streets were still dirt, and the Dead Sea was still sick. I was in fourth grade at Melrose School and ready to be transferred to the DA Marshall School which was brand new, when we were told that a classmate died the night before. His name was David Brenner, if my memory holds. We did not have grief counselors or any help dealing with this, we were sorry it happened. The teacher told us right before the Bible was read and we prayed the Lord's Prayer. (Try that today.) Maybe if today we would pray in school and read the Bible they could save on all those counselors that are called in to help when a child has an early call by God or there is trouble. When I was in fifth grade at the DA Marshall School, I was Lieutenant on the school safety patrol and the Captain Knut Larson who was in sixth grade had a sister who was in second grade. Well, little Lieutenant Danny would walk her home and then off to my paper route. There were times I would sit and talk with her and we would take her pet rabbit for a walk, this done after my paper route. Then one day she fell off of a horse and she died. Back then I had to deal with it with the help of my dear mamma as this little girl named "Nan"Larsen was a dear friend. Looking back I guess it was rabbit love, some said puppy love. My mamma helped me through this by telling me she was in heaven and talking to me about this. Even back then God was watching over me in my time of sorrow. I am sure that each one of you could give me examples.
When years later I picked up my net, started working for Jesus, and became a pastor, my first funeral was my dear brother Leonard. That was a hard funeral to preach, but in my time of sorrow, I had God right there helping ;me as I told others. In our scripture today the Apostle Paul is telling us that "our Lord Jesus Christ is the Father of Compassion and the God of Comfort." At this point I would make this statement, I don't know how anyone gets through their sorrow when losing a loved one without Jesus.
I will also tell you that in times of sorrow, many have come to Christ. I want to give you an example of this. At my brother's funeral, two of his sons (Leonard had six sons and a daughter) came to me and said they gave themselves over to Christ at the funeral. Yes, I did a call for salvation at his funeral and all funerals I have pastored. Now let me go back to the scripture again. Look at this!
Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 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.
Do you see how our Lord Jesus Christ comforts us in ALL of our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we received from God? Wow, that is great, like saying to others I love you, pass it on. Now let me give you another example of this. While pastoring my brother's service I was both receiving the comfort and compassion to get past my sorrow and at the same time I was using that comfort I received to help others including his two sons who came to Christ that day. It was not long after that that I received a call to pastor a graveside service for one day-old twins who had passed away. Born early, they just did not make it. The young parents did not go to church and they could not find a pastor from a church that would do their service. It was hard for me to understand why some of the biggest churches in the area turned them down. I was their last call and they were referred to me as the twins' last name was "Lehman". The comfort in my times of sorrow flowed over to them at this graveside service in Middletown where the funeral director came with the smallest casket I had seen with the two little ones in it. I know that God opened this door for me, not just for them, as I had a chance to comfort them with God's love and compassion and hug them and tell them about salvation and how the kids got that pass to heaven, and if they wanted to see them again they needed to come to Christ. They confessed their sins to Him that day. I have never seen or heard from the parents since then.
I know that you folks as you read this message could tell me of how God's love and compassion got you over your time or times of sorrow and how you shared God's love with others, even in your deepest time of sorrow. Let's pray.
Dear Father in Heaven, The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks for showing us compassion and love all the time and really laying it on us in times of our sorrow. Thanks for opening my memory and guiding me in this message. Bless all on this line in their times of sorrow according to Your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Now go forth sharing your compassion and love that Jesus Christ gave you. I love ya (pass it on).
Pastor Dan.
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