Tuesday 2/25/14 Repent 2

Dear Father in Heaven:  Thanks for a great Tuesday, Dear Lord.  I love You, Lord.  Please forgive me of my sins.  Lord, please have Your healing hand on Ted Hoffman,  Glenn Gamber, and thanks for healing Marie Gamber.  All honor and glory for healing goes to You, dear Lord.  Please, Lord, keep Your healing hand on Dolores, Ruby, Dan Stoner, the Saylors, the Emigs, and Lord, help carry the load for Grant and Wanda, Vicki, and others whose plates are full.  Be also with Leslie.  And Lord, watch over my friend Luke and his two new goats.  Lord, thank You for his family and all they do for us.  Lord, be with all your people as another cold snap is coming through.  We look forward to the rebirth coming in the spring.  Now, Lord, if You would please help me with the message and help me dispatch it, I would really appreciate it, and Lord, please touch the pain in my body.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Yes, brothers and sisters, I know it says Tuesday on the top of the page and it is really Wednesday, and I am going to do my best, with the helping hand of God, to get both messages out this morning.  We do have incoming snow, but I am praying it does not need plowed.  Also, brothers and sisters, you in the colder climates, watch those pipes.  I pray this tip might help you.  If you have a wood stove and use it, and you also have pipes along your walls and/or hot water heat, you might need to be sure that your heat is on high enough to keep those wall area pipes warm and that might mean turn off that wood stove when the temperatures go way down.  Praise God we got gas last week for in the food pantry and they even filled it up.  It cost a lot, but we need to keep heat on in the food pantry on these really cold days.  Time to get to the message.

Job 36:10 - He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.  (NIV)

Jeremiah 15:19 - Therefore this is what the Lord says.  "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me, if you utter worthy, not worthless words, you will be my spokesman."  (NIV)

Luke 17:3 - "So watch yourselves.  'If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.'"  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, let's look over the scriptures of Tuesday.  From Job:  He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent.  When I look at this, I can't help but think about this weather we are having and how this might be grabbing the attention of all of us and we are to repent of evil.  We all know that our Lord God is in charge.  I think back to several years ago when I was on the board of the Museum of Bus Transportation, and I was also chaplain.  Each meeting we opened with prayer.  Then someone new came on the board and complained and the prayers were stopped and a moment of silence was made.  I WALKED OUT.  Within a year there was a big, big flood, higher than any in history on the Swatara Creek near where the buses were stored, though not at the main Museum.  All of those buses went underwater.  Was God mad because the prayers were stopped?  Was this a warning shot to bring folks to their knees?  To cause people to repent?  Think about it, and look at all the weather related problems.  Is God calling us all to repentance?  Yes, of course He is.

Jeremiah 15:19 - Therefore this is what the Lord says.  "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me, if you utter worthy, not worthless words, you will be my spokesman."

In Jeremiah we see here about repenting and it is a promise.  "If you repent I will restore you."  And why is He restoring you?  So you may serve Him.  And He also tells us if we say worthy things and not worthless things we can speak for Him.  So brothers and sisters, this means we need to be first of all speaking the truth about things.  Now be sure you look at all of this, it tells us if we repent, and that means that all the things in our past are forgiven by God.  So I ask today, have you repented and are you worthy to speak for God?

Luke 17:3 - "So watch yourselves.  'If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him."

Now let's look at this closely.  If our brothers, and that means anyone, not just your blood brothers, if someone sins, Jesus tells us to rebuke him, and when they repent of those sins, forgive them.  Now listen to this, after you come to Christ you will always have someone cast your past against you.  Speak out to them and tell them your past has been wiped clean by Jesus and it is gone, and while I think all of us would like to forget some of the things in our past, and we remember them, DO NOT LET OTHERS HOLD THEM AGAINST YOU.  Do not let them bring them up.

Now with that said, go forth and share your blessings.  Love ya.  Please pass on that love.

Pastor Dan