Monday 6/24/2013 By Faith

Dear Father in Heaven, I pray this evening to You, my dear Heavenly Father, I pray in faith knowing that You will h ear all of our prayers, and that all of our prayers will be answered and I pray that they will be answered according to Your will and not ours.  Lord, please hold us tight, for the more we love You the nearer to You we want to be.  The more we love you, Lord, the more we want to walk out in faith for You.  The more we love You, the harder we want to work in Your fields of Harvest.  Lord, please forgive us today of our sins and then help each of us step out in faith for You.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Pastor Dan's Safety Tip:  When you change your clocks twice each year, you are told that is a good time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors in your house.  That is a great safety reminder.  Once a year, and I say in the fall, when you change that clock, also change the wiper blades on your cars.  You should also change your oil and filter, and you should do that twice a year.  So another good reminder is when you change the clocks.  If you take care of your car, it will take better care of you.

Dear brothers and sisters:  Each day we get together on this line and we pray to our Father in Heaven, and we have faith He will answer our prayer.  For a few days I want to tell you about just a few of the men and women in the Bible and some men and women in our times who have stepped out in faith for our Lord.  So let's go to work for Jesus and let's step out in faith.

Monday June 24, 2013, By Faith (Day One).

Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  2 This is what the ancients were commended for.  3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.  (NIV)

We Christians, we who truly follow Jesus in our lifestyle, and yes, slip once in awhile, but we who truly walk with Jesus, do it by faith.  Let us go all the way back to the beginning of our Bibles where it says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  We have faith that our Heavenly Father made everything right from the beginning.  As for me, I have not one doubt about any of the creation story.  I have faith that it is correct, and if you believe it, you are also walking out in faith.

By faith we pray each day.  And by faith we trust God, or should trust God in all things we do.  How strong is your faith?  Just how strong?  Let me ask a few questions today and let's just see.

Genesis 6:5 - The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become 6 and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth and His heart was filled with pain.  7 So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth --- Men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them."  (NIV)

Now you know where I am going here, I am going back to the days of Noah and the really big flood.  Our Lord God made everything and then trusted everything He made to man, and man and woman both really messed up.  They became evil, the men and women of the world became part of the world.  Seems to me we might be in that same place today.  Now in life as we grew up, we had many heroes and here are just a few of mine.  My Mamma, my big brother, Mighty Mouse, Batman (I liked his car), I liked Gene Autry (the singing cowboy) and his horse named "Champion" (I think).  Yes, as a child we had many heroes and over the years they would change.  One of my heroes was a young lady in my high school class, her name was Patricia Wells, and now Patricia Pierce.  She helped me with my homework, and without her, the way I worked at night, I would still be in high school.  Now, as a middle-aged man  (okay, so I am permitted one little white lie today) ... okay, as an older man, most all of my heroes now come from the Bible.  Now don't get me wrong here, I do not worship anyone but Jesus and our Father in Heaven, whom I worship through Jesus.  One of my heroes of the Bible is Noah, Noah the boat builder.  I just wonder how I would have acted if say, it was today and my feet would be in the shoes of Noah.

The Lord would say:  Daniel Webster Lehman ... Yes, Lord.  I need you to do something for me.  What might that be, dear Lord, what might that be?  Now that is more than likely how I would answer instead of answering like this:  I am ready to serve you, Lord, I will do whatever You wish me to do.  In my first answer, and I was writing this as the Lord gave it to me ... you see, in my first answer I was trying to find out what the Lord wanted me to do, before I committed to doing it for Him.  But what would I have done if I was chosen by God back then?  Well, folks, I must confess I would not have been one of the chosen ones.  You do remember that I did a walk-about, Noah did not.  He was right with the Lord.

So today, I pick Noah as one of my heroes of the Bible.  Along with Noah from the Bible, I would like to dd six men from today.  Now one can always get into trouble doing this, but there were six me who when I came back to the Lord and I started dating Dolores and started coming nearer and nearer to God, helped me with my walk.  These men, in no certain order, are Douglas Boyer, who is a funeral director and heads up "Brotherhood Native America Outreach."  I met him at the same time I met this young man, Timothy Beitzel, whom, by the way, will be singing at our annual picnic.  These two men, even to this day, help me when I need help with the ministry.  The four other men are Dave, Duane, and Neil, who were and still are great men of the Lord and really great gospel singers.  Yes, big tall Dave Kyllonen, Duane Nicholson, and Neil Enloe and Phillip Armenia and also his wife Marie.  These men and women of Gospel Music helped me get rooted in living for God.  And I want to tell you if you are going to go out and really work for the Lord, and if you have been a prodigal like me, I needed to get rooted in really well.  I also had to learn that even after giving all of my sins to God, people from my past will lay one on me once in awhile.  As I have said, Jesus is The Man, my main man, and no one comes close to how He is.  But these other men, whom for today I will call my earthly heroes and dear friends, will  help me, without question, when I ask them a question.

One thing you really need to do is if you are leading someone to the Lord, you need to set them up with a network of people who will help to root them in.  Once you get them to the feet of Jesus, you need to try and get them into a good church, and trust me when I say not all churches are preaching the complete truth.  Get them into a church where the pastor or pastors preach the complete truth.  Be sure there is not a lot of "in-fighting" at the church.  You know if you are going to teach a person to swim, and you just take them to the water, tell them this is the river, and you toss them in, they will learn to swim.  But some will drown.  The same will happen if you help lead someone to Jesus, they come to the altar in church and lay it all out to Jesus.  Then everyone leaves and that person is either going to get up and walk and maybe with Jesus, or they are just going to drown and walk away completely from God.

So today by faith, I want to say that I think my faith in our Lord is strong enough that if I would hear God call out "Daniel Webster Lehman" and I would say, Yes, Lord ... And the Lord would say, Daniel, I need you to do something for me ... I pray my answer would be without hesitation, "lay it on me, Lord, here I am, Lord, it is I, Lord, and I am ready to serve You in whatever You want me to do."

What about you?  One thing He is calling on all of us to do, and I tell you this each day ... Go forth now and share your blessings.  Love ya.  (Pass that on, please.)

Pastor Dan