Friday 3/7/14 Burdens 4

Dear Father in Heaven.  I love You!  Please wash me clean of my sins.  Please hear our prayers for healing for Dave, Beverly, Eleanor, Bob, Sharon, Dolores, Glenn, Marie, Grant, Jaylea, and Lord, please be with Grant, Wanda, Art, Elaine, and help carry their burdens, and Lord, please, let us hear from Matthew.  Lord, I also need Your touch on my body, if You would please stop the pain in my left knee I will do my best to handle the rest.  I know, Jesus, how it must have hurt You when the nails went into You, and I am sorry I sin for that must hurt You more than the nails.  Lord, be with our president and help him with our nation's problems, and Lord, be with our military and keep them safe, and Lord, please bring them home soon.  Lord, I know I am missing others, forgive me, Lord, and now please help me with the message and to dispatch it.  In the name of Jesus, all honor and glory to You. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, yes, it is Saturday,and this is Friday's message.  Until I got done yesterday what needed to be done, I came to the keyboard and fell asleep. I prayed for a message and God told me to rest, so I went to bed thinking I will get back up later and write.  However, my cat and dogs on the bed were still, and I did not wake back up.  Lots of people to pray for, I think every family is hurting in one way or another.  Our nation is at war and may be going to war in Russia.  Hey, don't worry about war, maybe next week God will give me a message on that subject. Now let me wrap up on Burdens ...

Friday, March 7, 2014, Burdens (Day Four).

Luke 11:46 - Jesus replied, "and you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."  (NIV)

Here is a warning that goes not just back then because we know that Jesus is the same today (Hebrews 13:8), so this warning goes to folks today.  Are you loading others down with burdens and not doing your part to help them?  I want to go way back into the days of childhood on this one.  My dear Mamma taught school, took in some washing and ironing to make ends meet as Pop was also a school teacher and he would paint houses in the summer.  Mamma did hire a really nice Negro lady named Mary to help her with the cleaning of the house on Saturdays so she could stay caught up.  I am using the term Negro because that is what a black lady would be called back then.  We were taught to call her "Miss Mary."  Her name was Mary Fields and I will never ever forget her.  First, Mamma would say to my brother and me, get your rooms cleaned up, I don't want Miss Mary thinking we live like pigs.  Saturday morning Miss Mary would arrive by city bus and come up to our home.  After praying, Miss Mary would get started cleaning and my Mamma would work right beside  her.  They would sing old hymns together as they cleaned the house, dusted blinds, etc.  Then they would have lunch together.  When finished for the day, Mamma would drive Miss Mary home.  She lived in uptown Harrisburg in what we would have then called the "colored section" of town.  Mamma would take her to her street and she would get out and tell us to lock the doors and be careful.  Mamma loved Miss Mary like a sister and although my mamma paid her and gave her the load of cleaning, my mamma would help her with the work.  When my mamma died, Miss Mary came to the viewing by bus. The viewing was at the Kimmel Funeral Home in Harrisburg, PA.  Miss Mary came and put her arms around me and hugged me and gave me a kiss and told me my mamma was the best person she ever knew.  (I am writing through tears right now.)

Today so many people hire others and do nothing to help them with their load.  While supervisors who hire them should be in an office, that office door should be open most of the time so those needing help could come and ask for the help needed.  You as someone who hires people to do the work might not be able to go and physically help someone with the load they were given to carry, but could assign another to go and help them.  Sometimes it is just instructions that are needed to help others carry the load.  I think I got my point driven home on that one.

Burdens are lifted at Calvary, brothers and sisters, for that I invite you to go to the Book of Mark and read Chapter 15, which tells about Jesus being arrested and dying on the cross for us.  Yes, brothers and sisters, our sins, our burdens, have been lifted at Calvary, and we should know that even though this happened some 2000 plus years ago, it holds true today, again I invite you to review Hebrews 13:8.  Maybe I should write that one out for all of you again today, so here it is.

Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.  (NIV)

So that's it for today, now go forth and share those blessings that Jesus gave you.  Love ya.  Please pass on that love.

Pastor Dan