Dear Father in Heaven: Thanks for all You do for us. Thanks for watching over our families and the families that work with Carry The Light Ministries. Father, thanks for the new families that have been coming in need of food and thanks and all glory and honor to You we have enough food in stock to help all families who have asked. Thanks for sending help to us. Thanks for the great weather and thanks for Jesus. Jesus, if we would just learn to follow Your footsteps and Your lead, we would be so much better off. Help us with it, dear Lord. Now, dear Lord, please, please help me with a message for today, and Lord, I am sorry yesterday that I was so tired that I did not get it done for You. Please after blessing me with the message, please then dispatch it for me. In the name of Jesus, I give all honor, praise and glory. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, it has just been perfect in the weather department here at the Southern Location of the North Pole. After clearing the driveway this morning of the 5 to 6 inches of snow (okay, just seeing if you are awake) ... Anyway, it was and is just beautiful as we see the start of the leaves changing color. If there is doubt in anyone's mind about God being in control, tell them to go and watch a real artist at work as God paints the mountains and trees. In the meantime, we are still picking tomatoes out of our tomato garden. Prayers today for my dear Aunt Romaine, not that there is anything wrong, just because she has been on my mind today. Pray for Dan Stoner and his family. Dan has cancer. Pray for Patsy and Burt and also Barbara from York and Barbara from Florida. Keep praying please for the Saylor family and for Eleanor to get home soon. Please continue to pray for Dave, Duane and Neil as they travel on their final singing tour across Canad. Pray also for Curtis and his family. Let me get to the message now.
Monday/Tuesday 9/30-10/1/2013, Many Parts.
1 Corinthians 12:12 - The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of smell be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. (NIV)
Let me relate this to something a bunch of us "car nuts" or "motor heads" will understand. One of the neatest things about working on an old car, and I mean an old car, is looking for the parts to try and complete this old treasure that we car nuts have. Not too many years back, a dear friend of mine, Tom Mozer, was restoring a 1957 Chevrolet, and yes, in that '57 Chevrolet red color. I remember going all around the Carlisle fairgrounds looking for different parts for the car. Years ago when my son Keith was about 14, we were looking for parts for his first car and first truck. The truck, a 1951 Ford, and the car, a 1963 Ford Thunderbird. Keith even painted his truck in our garage at home and it looked great. A man who painted refrigerators showed Keith how to paint, plus he took auto body at school. But the fun, the fun was finding the parts and putting them together and getting it running.
I think in amazement of how God made man, and when you stop and think about it, all of our parts were made from, yes, from dirt. Then when He made Adam a helper, He pulled a rib from Adam to make Eve. Think about it, folks. Keith and I walked miles and miles at car shows hunting parts for old cars, and the fun is in the hunt.
I want you to think about the scriptures today and how God really made us, how many different parts He uses. How He formed all of those parts to make them work together. Just think of what the body feels like when things are not working. Let's go back to the car. If the spark plugs get messed up, the motor gets a miss in it. We get a new set of spark plugs, put them in and back into business. If we get miss in our body, maybe it is just a cold or something like that and maybe with a little chicken soup and some rest we are back together. Sometimes we need to take our car to the garage and get the oil changed for over time the oil gets dirty and needs to be cleaned up. Sometimes our bodies need that same thing. Think about it now, you people older than sixty. My mamma, bless her soul, once a week gave me a spoonful of cod liver oil, to "clean me out." And clean me out it did. Mamma told us we needed to drink a lot of milk, and we needed to drink water and to lay off those Pepsis, but to this day, I sure to love my Pepsi, but I also drink a lot of milk. Think of all the parts of a car and think of all the parts of a person. Both amazing. In cars we have master mechanics, and we people have Dr. Jesus. Master Mechanics have mechanics or mechanic's helpers working under them. And Dr. Jesus, well, He gave a lot of people brains to be doctors and work on people. Dr. Jesus, all the glory and honor is Yours this day for making man and woman, and also for making those cars.
But now let us take a quick look at the Church, and in any church there must be some structure. Now God has handed down special gifts and those gifts are really needed in the church. Tell me, what good is your church if the preacher comes to preach, and the choir comes to sing, and the minister of music puts together the music, and then after the service someone gathers up all the offering and gets it counted and to the bank, but then the church is locked until the following Sunday? Wait a minute, who took out the trash, who cleaned the floor, who cleaned the pots in the restroom? People have special gifts, some gifts are those of caregivers, those who help and pray with those who are sick. Please do not let that all up to your pastor. Look at the gifts of music that have been given to those who work with the music in churches. I watch Dolores as she plays for church and she works with that gift that God gave her. Over the years I watched "Miss Kim" as I respectfully called Kim Murphy, the Minister of Music at Hope Church, as she made a very small choir sound really, really good, with the help of God, of course. Special gifts, and churches need all of them. Gifts that come from the "Holy Spirit." Gifts that come from our Good Lord Jesus. When you look at all churches, if people would just use the gifts that God has granted unto them instead of maybe being jealous of others' gifts, the churches would grow and grow. The best gift, of course, is that gift of Love, and those who really have that gift need to be the greeters at the door and to be sure they welcome people of all colors. God's gifts to us are many, some have more than one gift. Do you know what your gifts from God really are? If you go to church, do you use your gifts or do you just sit in your same stink (same pew) each week seeing if someone might lay a blessing on you? Folks, share your blessings and watch what Jesus does with those blessings coming back to you. Let's pray.
Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for the special gifts and thanks for giving me a gift to pastor and to love. I pray all folks have that great gift of Love that Jesus gave to all of us. Yes, Jesus gave each of us the gift of Love when He took away our hate on the cross, and Father, I give thanks for that right now. Help us to walk with You, Jesus, each day. Oh, and Lord, thanks for those great days I had with our kids hunting car parts, and thanks for the time I got to spend with friends working on old cars. Help us, Lord, to be with You. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Now go forth, sharing the Love of Jesus, sharing your blessings, and maybe even sharing an old car part. Oh, and signing up to share a part from your body, when you get called home. Share, share, and love, and love some more. Yes, and I love ya. Pass it on. Pastor Dan
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