Mon/Tues 8/5-6/13 Loving Each Other

Prayer list for today:  Patsy and Burt Emig.  Patsy is still in the hospital after a bad fall.  Burt needs God's touch upon his eyes.

Eleanor Saylor.  Surgery is over; Eleanor needs the healing hand of our Lord.

Bob Coburn and Jendi Sansoni.  Surgery is over, but I did not receive updates yet.

President Obama and all of our leaders.  All of our veterans and current military, and our police and firefighters.

Carry The Light Ministries upcoming work day, this Saturday morning.

Forgiveness of our sins ... Yes, ours, mine, and yours.

Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for another night's rest, and I am so sorry I did not get to the computer yesterday to put out a message for You.  Please forgive me.  Please, Lord, wash my sins away.  Lord, be with those on our prayer list and honor our prayers according to Your will in our lives.  Lord, please stop the terrorists and bring peace upon this world You created.  Now, Lord, please bless me with a message and then dispatch it for me.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Good morning, my sisters and brothers.  Sorry about yesterday, the day just got away from me.  After many, many years of emailing and then mailing things back and forth with Patsy and Burt, and many years of their support of Carry The Light Ministries Food Pantry and other ministries, we finally got to meet them.  On Saturday Dolores and I went to the York hospital and for the very first time we got to see these dear, dear folks face to face.  Over the years these folks stepped out in the love of Jesus to help Carry The Light Ministries.  It started out when someone put them on the list to receive messages daily.  When their computer gave up, we started mailing them daily.  Please pray for them daily.  Maybe this is why God has pointed me to a message about love and loving others.

Monday/Tuesday August 5-6 2013, Loving Each Other, Day One.

1 John 4:7 - Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  9 This is how God showed His love among us; He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.  10 This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  (NIV)

Love, God's greatest gift.  What is love?  What really is Love?  First, let me tell you what love is NOT.  Sex is not love, sex is passion or just lust.  God loves all of us, even those who hate Him.  Who then loves us next?  Well, folks, it might just be your pet!!  I just had to shed a tear on that one.  I miss my dear little Martin.  Okay, back to the message.  God's love goes to all of us, He knew us and loved us even before we were in the womb, He loved us in the womb, and He has loved us enough to die for us, for our filthy sins.  Over the years we have had many men and women who loved all of us and loved our country enough to sign up for our military or to be a police officer or firefighter.  Not all men and women who go into the military went to battle but they were willing to go.  Over the years men and women laid their lives on the line for people they did not know, they just went out and did it.  This week I really want to look at love and by the end of the week, I pray that all of you will love everyone, even those who might hate you.  After all, we are going to take our lead from our Lord Jesus.

Let's look at our scripture from 1 John.  The Bible tells us that we should love one another because love comes from God.  Can you truly say that you love everyone?  I confess that I must work on it and work on it daily.  It is easy to love those who love you, but sometimes hard to love someone who over the years have treated you wrongly.  The Bible tells us that Love comes from God and surely Jesus loved/loves all of us, even when we mess up.  When Jesus was on the cross and dying, He did not look ahead in time and say, hey, Danny Lehman, I am not going to love you, because you were a bad boy.  He went to the cross loving and dying for me, and of course all of you.

One person that I found over the years the hardest to love, and folks, I do not want to offend anyone here, but I am going to tell you who it was.  Who was the hardest person in all of God's world  for me to love once I fully came to understand what love really was and is?  To love someone we must follow in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, we must walk as He did, and we must walk in His light.  One of the main things we must do is learn to forgive, and we must forgive so that we may be forgiven.  So who is that one person that I have had trouble loving after I came to Jesus?  Well, that one person was!  Maybe I should make you take a guess at this.  No, I will tell you, the hardest person for me to love was ... Daniel Webster Lehman, Jr., and that of course is me.  Yes, I have done things in my life that I am not proud of, that I should not have done, and I knew better.  But after years of loving God I have given it all over to Him, and in that way I now can look in the mirror and truly know that I love who I am, not who I was, but who I am.  One of the hardest things to do is take all your junk, all your sins, and give them over to God and then let them be.
Some people might come up and say that I remember him or her when she did this or that.  You tell them that you are a new person now and all those things have been washed away with the blood of Jesus.

Over the years, since I have fallen deeply in love with Jesus, and I mean deeply in love with Him, I find it much easier to walk with  Him.  Yes, I slip and even fall once in awhile, but He helps me back up and I grab hold of Him and keep on watching and working for Him.  I find it easy to pray with people and people I don't know.  I watched as a mother and her daughter walked out of a doctor's office crying.  Now this mother and daughter were older.  It was a warm day and I was waiting for Dolores when this mother/daughter walked out and were heading to the car next to mine.  I said to them, ladies, it looks like you might have received bad news.  And they answered yes.  I said, can I pray with you and for you?  They welcomed it, and in a few minutes there on the parking lot, we brought Jesus to them.  Now they already loved Jesus, and I was just a reminder that He would be with them.  We prayed and then we sang a few songs.  They love Jesus and I now have two new sisters.  I did mess up when I did not get their names, but the Lord knows them and loves them and they love and know Him.  Let's look at a few more scriptures.

Romans 12:9 - Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves.  (NIV)

And this, the number one scripture world-wide ...

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (NIV)

Okay, as I wrap it up for this day, remember this:  We need to honor one another above ourselves.  So, folks, we must also love ourselves.  So if you have burdens on you today, let us bundle them up right now and get rid of them.  Are you ready?

Dear Father in Heaven:  Yes, I am indeed a sinner, and I do have some burdens that I carry, and today I want to turn all of them over to You, and I do not want to look back on them ever.  So forgive me, please, dear Jesus, wash me white as snow with Your blood.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings and love on each other, tell folks you love them, put a song on your heart and lips and sing it as you travel today.  In fact, to help that, I am going to skip the safety tip and try and put this song on your mind, heart, and lips.  So sing it, my dear brothers and sisters,sand share your blessings.  Love ya, pass it on.  Pastor Dan.

Come on, let's "Fly Away."

Verse One:

Some glad morning when this life is o'er ... I'll fly away
To a land on God's celestial shore ... I'll fly away.

I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I'll fly away.

Verse Four:

Just a few more weary days and then ... I'll fly away
To a land where joys shall never end ... I'll fly away

I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I'll fly away.

Just a few more times

I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I'll fly away.

One more time!!

I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I'll fly away.

Have a blessed and wonderful day.  God go with you and you with God.  Amen.