Friday 5/17/13 Christians' Responsibilities 5

Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for another beautiful day here on earth, how great Thou art, Lord.  Even as I sit at a window where I can see the sunrise in the morning, I can see the sun breaking light as I look out the windows of this room You have given us to use in our  home You have given us to use.  Oh, Lord, how can we ever thank You enough?  I pray today that You will be with our leaders in Washington and in our State houses across this great nation.  I pray for our local leaders and school directors and all others who have authority over us.  Lord, be with all of those who travel in Your name, preaching, teaching, singing, flying to the outback, in foreign lands and across the streets from our own homes.  Lord, please, keep Your hands on pastors across this land and help us all to preach and teach the truth according to Your Holy Word.  Lord, bless those who need Your healing hand.  Be with Mrs. Sansoni and Mrs. Lieb as they work into assisted living homes.  Help them blend in with staff so they are not lonely.  Be with all seniors who need to sell off their homes and move to those retirement homes.  Thank You, Lord, for all those good, thanks for this line, and please now bless me with the message of today.  All honor and glory to You, Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, we had another beautiful day here in Central Pennsylvania.  I pray all of you are well this day.  I want to thank all of you for the cards and notes I received for my birthday.  Again, looking back, it was the best birthday I can remember, with the exception of my 16th, when I got to drive.  Now folks, I want to get on with the message, and it looks like it might even go into next week.

Friday 5/17/13 Christians' Responsibilities, Day Five.

Romans 12:14 - 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.  (NIV)

Yes, we will be working on this subject more next week.  Again, I am talking about our responsibilities as Christians.  Are you looking at scriptures?  Bless those who persecute you!

I need to pause right now and ask for you to pray with me.

Dear Father in Heaven, there has been a computer train wreck in Fairfield Ct. just outside of New York City.  Lord, I have no details except that folks have been injured.  Lord, please board the train and be with all the folks and be with first responders as they enter the trains.  Thank You, Lord, In Jesus' Name I pray.  Amen.

Okay, I am back.  Bless those who persecute you!  In other words, we need to be praying for those who take us apart.  We are to go beyond just loving them, we are to bless them.  Listen to these words of Jesus as found in ...

Matthew 5:44 - "But I tell you:  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."  (NIV)

This is Jesus, my dear brothers and sisters, telling us not just to love our enemies, and we are to pray for them.  Look, folks, I am not making this up, as I have said to you before, please get out your Bible and check me out.  You should do that in your church.  And the scripture said we are to "bless, do not curse."  Let's move on.  The Bible tells us in verse 15, we are to "rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."  This again means it is not only a Christian's responsibility, we need to look at it as a privilege.  A honor, and why?  Because we are claiming to be Christians and that means we are to be "Christ-like".  Please notice I said we are claiming to be Christians, but are we?  Are we doing all the things we should be doing?  Do we rejoice with people who rejoice, and do we use understanding when folks mourn?  Folks, this is what Jesus said we are to do.  It is indeed part of our Christian Responsibility.

Let's move on.  Now look at this, we are to live in harmony with one another.  Oh my gosh, pick up any paper daily and see if that is going on in the United States of America.  In our great nation that God has trusted to us, are we doing these things?  NO, NO, NO!!!  We are not living in harmony or we would not read of shootings, muggings, etc., each day in our papers across these lands.  If I gambled, I would bet you half of my beard that more people are killed in a week in Chicago than in our war zones in the same period of time.  And I am not about to give up half of my beard.  Live in harmony is our Christian Responsibility.  Hey, I am just telling you like it is.  This is what is expected of us by our Lord Jesus.

Look at this one.  Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.  Do not be conceited.  Let me ask you this, in any business, any, have you ever seen the person at the top of the pile sit down with the one on the bottom for lunch?  Have you ever seen the school principal sit down with the school custodian for lunch?  Have you seen the CEO of a big company break bread with the one who cleans his toilet?  Do you see where I am coming from?  Do you see where Jesus is coming from?  This is our Christian Responsibility to do these things.  I will lay claim to this, when I headed up the school transportation department at Central Dauphin School District, as the administrator, I preferred, I preferred to eat with my drivers and I manned who cleaned our building.  I did not often get to sit down for lunch, but when I did, I wanted to be with the people who had jobs in those low positions.  Oftentimes I think they had more common sense than those at the top.  One last one ...

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.  Set out to do good each day.  If evil comes your way, overcome it with good.  My dear late mamma taught me when I was real young ... "that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."  (But mamma, what do I do with all the flies?")  Anyway, you are never, ever going to win someone to the Lord doing evil, again, we must stand with Jesus.  You did notice when Jesus walked the earth, He, our Lord God, would sit and eat with the tax collectors.  We are to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  And for that we are going to hear people say, "he/she thinks they are better than others."  No, folks, we are not better than others, but Jesus is, and we are to be like Jesus.  And we are to try hard, it is a tough road to climb some days, but after all, it is indeed our CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY.

Dear Father, be in that train, and please travel with this message.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings.  Have a great weekend, see you Monday.

Love ya.  Pass it on.

Pastor Dan