Tuesday 10/8/2013 What Time Is It? (2)

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You, I truly do, and I give thanks and glory to You for a great day.  Thanks for a wonderful sing-along and for You being with us.  Thanks for watching over our families and friends and watching over this line.  Thanks for supplying all my needs and all my meals this day.  Father in Heaven, please put a message on my mind and bless it for me and help me to write it, then dear Lord, please dispatch it for me.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, it was and still is a beautiful day here at the Southern Location of the North Pole.  We were out doing a sing-along at The Bridges this morning and we had Martin Martin Jr. with us and our new little man did wonderfully.  Please pray today first a praise prayer for John Lieb as he is up, out of the hospital and looking well.  Please pray for Curtis, for Craig, for Grant, for Patsy, for Barbara, for Burt, for Dolores, and for the Ministries of Carry The Light.  In the very near future we will be posting some "work dates" for our annual pick and pack day and also our distribution day.  Both days are really a lot of fun.  It is hard to believe that we are into the second week of October and getting ready for Christmas.  That leads me to ask all of you, "What Time Is It?"

Tuesday, October 8, 2013, What Time Is It?  Day Two.

Mark 13:34 - "It's like a man going away:  He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.  35  Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows at dawn.  36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping."  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, when I look back at my days at John Harris High School (class of '59), I can remember  how I would watch that clock.  It seemed like it took forever and a day for that clock to move from 3:00 PM to 3:05 PM when that dismissal bell would ring.  "Time will pass, will you?"  It just seemed to take forever and ever until that bell rang and then it was out of the building into my car and off to work.  What time is it?  You would hear that being asked, What time is it?  I want to look back on that saying that was written under the clock.  "Time will pass, will you?"  As people try and figure out when Jesus is coming back, maybe when they look up they might hear Jesus talking to them.  "The time will come, will you be ready?"  Again I want to bring out to you that as we stand watch over and over we need to be working those fields of harvest so as to get others ready who might have been like me when I was in high school: I would watch the clock while I could have done some home work.  Again I thank God for Pat Wells, now Pat Pierce, who helped me so much in my final year in school.  If I did not understand something she could tell me in a way that I did understand.  Bless her heart, I will never forget that help.  Pat is a Christian and I am sure this day she is helping to get folks ready for heaven, which just might be the next day's assignment in our world today.

Now I know that Jesus gave us a way to laugh and have fun, but can you picture this?  God the Father gathers together His Son  Jesus, and Old Gabe, the angel with the horn and a few others and tells them it is time.  Picture Jesus stepping out on a cloud of light, which is the way He is coming back, and Gabe plays the trumpet and then with a mighty shout, Jesus yells out, "Ready or not, here I come."  Once again today I want to pint out a few things that we have been commanded to do while we are waiting.  We are to be standing watch, but we should be doing this.

Mark 16:15 - He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."  (NIV)

The good news, of course, is Salvation Through Jesus, and we are to be telling everyone we see.  Tell them this!

So what else should we be telling them?  Let me get one more for today.  "What Time Is It?"  You ask.  It is time to tell them this.  Here is what, or should I say whom, you need to get into Heaven.

John 14:6 - Jesus answered:  "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."  (NIV)

I want to bring out one other thing today.  The time might come when you would need to be willing to lay down your life to get the word of Jesus, the good news, out.  Will you be willing to do that?  I am sure if we must do that, we will be rewarded in Heaven for it.  Look  here.

John 15:13 - "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."  (NIV)

Would you lay down your life for Jesus by going into the fields of harvest to warn others of His coming and the good news about that coming?  Yes, that would be laying down your life for Him.  I know I would be willing and I am sure others of you would be also.  Well, let me see.  "What time is it?"  Time to get busy for the Lord.

Now go forth, my dear brothers and sisters, and remember, we have work to do.  So let us get moving, and start by sharing our blessings, living for Jesus and telling others this or something like it.  Love ya.  Pass it on.

Pastor Dan