Friday 11/8/13 Jesus Loves Me 8

Dear Father in Heaven:  Thanks for another beautiful day, dear Father, and thanks again today for watching over our family and the families of all those who use this line.  Dear Lord, Craig needs work, and Lord, open his eyes as You open a door for him to find a job.  Be with his family.  Thanks, Lord, and all praise and honor for Your healing hand on Dan Stoner, Lord, and thanks, dear Lord, for the improvement we see in Curtis.  Lord, I love You and appreciate what all You do for all of us.  Father, please help me keep focused on what I am doing.  And be with all those others we are praying for.  And today, Lord, please be with all those who work in Your fields of harvest.  Now, dear Father in Heaven, please help me with the message.  Anoint it for me and then help me to dispatch it.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Friday, November 8, 2013, Jesus Loves Me (Day eight).

Hebrews 12:4 - In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.  5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:  "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son."  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, we are going to look at one scripture at a time as I struggle to find a better way to serve the Lord and make the message complete without writing a book each day.

Yesterday I talked about why do bad things happen to good people, and again I do not know all the answers to this, and I am sure that I never will, but God does point out more and more to me each day.  Hebrews 12 talks about God disciplining His sons.  Please take time to read Hebrews 12.  In verse 4 He tells us that we have not yet resisted sin to the point we are shedding our blood.  As we get nearer and nearer to God, our sins should be less and less, we indeed are sinners and I know that I still mess up, but not nearly like I once did.  You can see around us as we Christians get nearer and nearer to God our struggles will be changing.  There are places today that if you park your car with words for Christ on them, your car might get damaged.  We see now that people are walking into churches and shooting people.  We know as believers that the time will come when we will be persecuted.  Do not be concerned, just keep walking with God.  This scripture goes on to tell us that we, we children of God, we who walk with Him will be disciplined.  As a parent, do we not need to discipline our children to make them listen?  Each in a different way today, maybe.  The Bible tells us not to lose heart when He rebukes us.  He only disciplines those He loves.  My parents loved me, and I know that, and I was disciplined (I was a brat and I needed it).  Listen, we see it today, kids running wild, parents not taking care of them.  How can they love them when they let them do as they want?  No time for the kids. God disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts.  However, along with that discipline and that punishment comes forgiveness and eternal life.  Brothers and sisters, He is lining us up to get into heaven.  Think about it, if you did not love your children, why would you care what they did?  Moving on.

Luke 7:5 - Because He loves our nation and has built our synagogue.  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is the same today, remember that, and today He loves this nation and if you think for one minute you can build a place of worship and do it without Jesus, you had better rethink it.  Without Jesus, you are just kidding yourself.  Church upon church has failed, and more still failing.  Beautiful churches being boarded up, for they have not put Jesus in front.  Some  being torn down, some burnt, and some closed or merged because the attendance has fallen off.  It just happened in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where three United Methodist Church flocks were merged into one.

It goes on and on.  People, flocks of people need to get on their knees, invite our Lord Jesus into their church building and when the Holy Spirit comes in, so will more and more people.  If you lock Jesus out, the Spirit leaves, and so will the flock.

Brothers and sisters, in closing up on Jesus Loves Me, it is the same with us today, Yes, Jesus Loves Me, and I need to keep talking to Him and loving Him, and His love to me, to us, will grow and grow in us, and as it does we will love Him more and more.  Walking with the Love of Jesus will be the best way to walk.  Will you walk with Him today?

Dear Father in Heaven, please help me walk with You each day, hold me with Your loving arms, please don't let me backslide again.  Heal my wounds of battle, Lord, and forgive me and save me, dear Lord.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

Brothers and sisters, please pray today for all those we have been praying for.  Please add Craig for a job, and pray for all those going into the fields of harvest to work for Jesus.  Speaking of working for Jesus, an update on Dan Stoner follows my closing today.  It was worded by Dan, and not changed.  Now, my dear online flock I am falling asleep as I write, so I am closing up for now, saying this ...

Please go and share your blessings. Love ya.  Pass that on.  Pastor Dan

From The Stoners' CaringBridge website:

Nearly Completely Resolved

Oct 30,2013 6:47pm

So this is how the CT report reads ... "Previously noted large mass within upper abdomen has nearly completely resolved."  The language is a little vague because there is still a very small mass in my abdomen that could be malignant or it might just be scar tissue.  Either way we are continuing to pound away at this mass as we are now increasing the chemo dosage to level 4.  Considering that I am just halfway through my chemo treatments, this is great news!  God is once again showing that His hand is in the midst of this!  My doctor is very happy with the response of the mass and my body's ability to tolerate chemo.  I'm the first patient that he has ever had reach level 4.  It might also be that I am the first patient he has ever had with this many people praying for them.

We were also blessed over the past two days by a visit from some very dear friends.  We met Eric and Melissa while we were in language school together.  They are now in the States for a surgical conference that Eric has to attend after having served in Togo for the past 10 months.  Since Ohio is on the way from Africa to Memphis, not really, they stopped by to check up on us.  Eric had the opportunity to meet my doctor this morning and we were able to confirm that the proper follow-up blood work and scans scan be performed in Togo.  Eric's last words to me today ... "see you in Togo."