Dear Father in Heaven: Thanks for a wonderful weekend, and I want You to know that I love You, I really love You. Please, dear Lord, start me fresh this week by forgiving me of my sins. Please be with those on our prayer list from last week. Lord, please watch over President Obama and his family, also our Vice President and other leaders in Washington, DC. Lord, watch over Governor Corbett and his family and all those in the Pennsylvania State House and all those in state houses across this great nation. Please, dear Lord, bless those running local governments and in all cases, national, state, local, I pray first for the soul of all those leaders. I pray today for our veterans, our current military, and I pray You bring them home safe and soon. Watch over our police and firefighters, and please, Lord, keep Your healing hand on long-time firefighter Robert Coburn, and please keep him clear of cancer. Thanks for watching over our family, our ministry team, and all the ministries of Carry The Light. Please bless all the letters that went out. Now if You will be so king to help me with the message and then dispatch it for me. In Jesus' Name, I pray, Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, this week God has pointed me to messages about love, and the best way to start out messages about love is to just tell you this, "I love you," I really do. Some of you I know, while others I have never met but I love you just the same. Please pray today for our president and all of our leaders across the country, pray also for our veterans, and remember some of them are but 18 years old and in our military hospitals. Pray hard for our wounded warriors. Pray for our state and local police and also the firefighters in your community. Please send in your praise reports and prayer requests and I will get them posted for prayer. God has pointed me to messages about love this week, so let me get started on this subject. And please pray for me as I write this.
Monday, September 23, 2013, Love (Day One).
1 Corinthians 13:4 - Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)
Dear brothers and sisters, on a scale of 1 to 100, how strong is your love for others? Do you love even those you have never met? Do you love our Lord Jesus above all others? And do you love people that might hate you or have done things against you? And yes, I have this question for you. Do you love yourself?
The scripture that God put on my heart this morning is one that I have used in weddings, and I feel it will be a good starting base for this week. Let's break it down.
Love is patient. If we truly love someone, we do need to be patient with those we love. Now let's look for an example of this. Love is patient, let me see, I am indeed a sinner and I know our Lord Jesus loves me, in fact He loved/loves me enough to die for me. So we start out by following the example of our Lord Jesus. Next we have men and women who have gone to war and gave all, gave their life for all of us, and yes, even people in other countries. Others in our military gave up parts of their bodies for us, and we need to thank them and show love for them by supporting their efforts. Also, when we talk about love being patient, we must learn to use that with our spouse. Sometimes, it seems our love grows short with those we have around us most of the time.
Love is Kind. So how can we not be kind to ones we love? So I ask this today, if we are not being kind to them, then do we truly love them, as much as God Loves us? I ant you to think about that one. Think about how kind God is with us. To name just a few things of God's kindness, just look at the weather today.
Love Does Not Envy. If you love someone, do you envy them? Maybe their house is bigger than yours or they have a Caddy and you have a Hugo. (Do you remember the Hugo?) Some people envy others for the dumbest things. I mean how many people envy those folks or that one person who just won a few million dollars in the lottery? Would you really want to win and have all those headaches of where to spend your money? If you truly love the Lord, then take time to love and appreciate what He has bestowed upon you.
Love does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking. If you are one to boast, if you are a proud person, and I am not talking about being proud of a child who has done well in school; if you are a rude person or you are always seeking rewards for yourself -- then you might need to address your love for God and for others to be sure it is real.
Love is slow to anger and does not keep account of wrongs. In all these descriptions of LOVE we need to follow the lead of our Lord Jesus. However, maybe this one comes out clearer than the rest. If our Lord was to anger and kept account of our wrongs, He would be upset at me all the time and He would need a few really big books to keep score of my mess-ups. So brothers and sisters, please, if someone has wronged you, forgive them, and then put it away. Don't let it be like an embedded splinter in your hand and get all festered up. Besides that, take a look at the Lord's Prayer, and pray that part that we pray, "forgive us our debts (sins), AS WE forgive those who have debts (sinned) against us." Please remember we are forgiven as we forgive. Amen.
Love hates evil and rejoices with truth. Folks, if it is one thing that God tells us to hate, it is sin, and I will bring that out later this week in scripture.
Love protects, trusts, and has hope. Love always perseveres. While I can apply all of these things to our Lord Jesus, you would expect me to do that. And yes, they all apply to Jesus, but I want to tell you that they all apply to those who have served our country in the military. While we have many veterans, and many in our current military, they all love this country, or should, and that love of country protects us. Think of the love of our military, our police and firefighters as we pray today.
Love comes from God and if it were not for Him, dare I say we would not even have or know anything about it. Most would just think love is sex. Tomorrow, more love and maybe a love story or two. Let's pray.
Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for loving us, thanks for loving me, and thanks, Lord, for teaching me to love and understand it. Lord, I want to give thanks for our pets that love us also, and also give us something to hold onto when we sometimes get lonely. Please be with our leaders and all of our military and keep them safe and bring them home soon. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Now go forth and share the love of Jesus, yes, share that great blessing, the Love of Jesus, with others. Love ya, and please pass that love on. Pastor Dan
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