Dear Father in Heaven: Thank You for taking care of our family and the families of this line. Thanks for watching over children, Lord, and thanks for answering prayers even about snow plows. Please be with Eleanor Saylor and clear her infection. Please be with Sharon as she looks after her family. Thanks for the food that is coming into the food pantry and for all those helping. Lord, help me do a better job of using my time. Thanks for my attitude change, Lord. Gosh, how I love You. Keep being with Leslie and keep her safe. Lord, please help Jared with his job and to get back to church. Clear Jeff of kidney stones, please, Lord, and You understand the needs and troubles on my heart this morning, I turn them over to You in the Name of Jesus. Now, Lord,if You would once again plant Your word on my mind and heart and then out my fingers, and also dispatch the message for me, I would appreciate that also. Oh, and Lord, scrub me clean again today with the blood of Jesus, in whose name I ask my prayers and offer up praise. Amen.
Note, starting today the message will be after my opening prayer.
Tuesday/Wednesday, November 5/6, 2013, Jesus Loves Me (Day Six).
Daniel 9:4 - I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands." (NIV)
Lamentations 3:31/32 - For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. (NIV)
Jeremiah 33:11 - The sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thanks offerings to the house of the Lord saying, "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty for the Lord is good and His LOVE ENDURES FOREVER." (NIV)
NOW ON TO JESUS LOVES ME and brothers and sisters, Jesus really does love each and every one of us. Over the years I have been praying that God would open His word more and more to me. He is now moving me to add in more things from the "First Testament."
Let's look at today's scriptures. We see in Lamentations that men (and women) are not cast off forever. When we talk about our Lord casting us off, it does not mean He is not paying attention to us. What He is giving me on this, is we have a choice, we can walk with Him or we can do a walk-about, walk away from Him. When we go out and walk in deep sin, He is always near us waiting for us to call out for Him. It also tells us that He brings us grief and He will show compassion. Brothers and sisters, that is how He gets our attention. Sometimes we do not understand why we have the grief, why did we need to go through it or why we still go through some even when walking with God. None of us know all the answers about this, but I do know that He loves us. I know way back in my life, at one of my lowest points, is where I started my walk back to Christ. Sometimes life is like that coaster, you have ups and downs. The good news that we see in these verses of Lamentations is in that last line, "SO GREAT IS HIS UNFAILING LOVE."
Now let's look at the scriptures from Daniel (great name). We see Daniel praying and what is he praying? "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands."
Daniel is telling God He is great and awesome. How long has it been since we said in prayer or just looked up and said to God, You are great? Each week at the Bridges we close with the refrain from the hymn, "How Great Thou Art." But how often do we just say something like this ... "God, You are great and I really do love and appreciate You?" Answer ... Not often enough! Now let's look some more. He is an Awesome God, who keeps His covenant of Love. His love is a covenant, a covenant is a promise. When you make a promise or covenant to someone, do we always keep it? No! I confess I have broken many in my lifetime, many. Folks, sometimes we need to break a promise, but not often. That will be for another day. Then we see here again today that this Love of Jesus, Love of God, Love of our Lord is for those who love Him and what? Obey His Commands!! Do you see how this ties together? While He is standing by, when we are not obeying His commands, He will welcome us back when we start walking again with Him.
Let's look at our final scripture for today, and folks, this guy is not a "bullfrog." I will bring this down for you.
Jeremiah 33:11 - The sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord saying, "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty for the Lord is good and His LOVE ENDURES FOREVER." As you look at this, I want to go right to the end of this scripture. The Lord is good, and his love, His love what? "HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER." And as one song tells us, "And that's a long, long time."
Dear Father in Heaven, thanks for Your word today, please open it for others to understand. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, I LOVE YOU! Yes, it is Salvation Wednesday, and the day we pray for the lost and for Jesus to use we who are saved to help bring them to Jesus. Please pray for the Saylor family. Eleanor is back in the hospital with an infection. Keep praying for Leslie, pray for Jeff who is pushing kidney stones, and others on our prayer list. Praise report. On Monday I prayed for our very old snow plow. I still plow snow to bring in a few dollars for the food pantry, and we also need a plow to keep our driveway open at all times as people come for food. Well, I found out that parts are no longer available for this plow, so I would need to rebuild or buy used. I went and priced a new plow and what it would cost to make payments. Dolores and I talked it over and we could handle the payments and the credit was approved. I came home from plow shopping to find an email asking me to get a price on a new plow as the person does not want to see me hurt messing with repairing the old one or having it go break down while out plowing. Long story now getting short. A pledge of money was made for a new plow, and then came a second one. While not enough to cover the plow in full, I am going to give a cash (check) for the down payment today and we are going to walk it out in faith. No money will be pulled from the dollars we have back to purchase food. NONE, ZIP. God is good. Now please pray that we can cover the cost of the plow in full, which is $3,700.00 and that another one of our old vehicles will be sold in time to help pay for this plow in full. God has been very good to us, and as the calls from more families in need keep coming in, we are able to give them food, and even more food than before. Pray also that the new plow mounts come in before that first snow.
Okay, one last thing. We have changed our Christmas food distribution date from December 21st to December 14th. The times will be the same.
Picking and packing on December 7th from 9 to noon (lunch furnished). Food distribution on December 14th from 9 to noon with workers arriving at EIGHT AM to help set up. Lunch furnished.
Let us know if you can make it. Please, no small children.
I have changed the order of my writing so to have the message which is the most important part of my daily writing first, so if you get tired of reading, at least maybe you have looked over God's word. Now go forth and share those blessings. I love ya, and please pass that love on. Pastor Dan
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