Thursday 3/13/14 It's Sharp 3

Dear Father in Heaven, I love You.  Thanks for bringing Jim home safe.  Forgive me of my sins and help me with a fresh start this day.  Please be with those we have been praying for, Lord.  Watch over our K-9's this day.  Lord, be with those who must work outside this day and keep them safe and warm.  Lord, this morning I saw men working in trees around power lines, please watch over them.  Be with our president and other leaders, please help the lost plane be found and be with all those families in Harlem, New York.  Oh, Lord, bless and heal our brothers and sisters in that explosion.  Be with our police and firefighters, and Lord, help me please with the daily message.  Then, Lord, help me to dispatch it.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, this morning I was doing 25 MPH and was passed by a "trash can."  Just kidding, it was going the other way.  Please pray for our brothers and sisters from Harlem that have family taken in the gas explosion and be with and heal those who were injured.  Pray for the ones on the lost airliner.  Pray for our president and other leaders, plus our military, our police and firefighters, and all others who work to keep us safe.  Praise report, Praise report.  JIM IS HOME SAFE.  While we prayed for him each step of the way, I did not post any route.  He flew out of Afghanistan through another dangerous country and had to transfer planes there.  Then two more planes to get home.  All honor and glory to God.  Praise report.  I had a tree fall on one of our cars, and the car won, our roof was not so blessed, but it did not fall in.  Always something to be thankful for.  Let me get to the message.

Thursday:  March 13, 2014, It's Sharp (Day Three).

2 Corinthians 12:20 - For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be.  I fear that there may be quarreling,  jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.  (NIV)

Proverbs 11:13 - A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret. (NIV)

Proverbs 16:28 - A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.  (NIV)

Proverbs 26:20 - Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, this morning we got up very early as we had to take our furry children to the dogtor.  I went to put toothpaste on my toothbrush and squeezed the tube way too hard and I got way too much paste from that tube.  Then I did it again with the "stuff for my denture."  I just got carried away squeezing the tube.  I tried and tried to push that paste and that other "stuff" back in the tube.  After working awhile, I did get some back in, but not very much at all, but some.  Stop laughing, you try it sometime.  It might be your last tube of paste or stuff, and you are not going to the store.  Try putting it back in the tube.  I think there is only one thing that might be harder than that!  What is that, you ask?  Try putting words back in your mouth after you put them over your lips.  Think of it, brothers and sisters, and I think we all have done it.  We say something about someone, and it hurts them, and then you say "I am sorry."  You can put your arms around them and apologize up and down.  The one you hurt may say it is okay and forgive you, and that should happen, but still the words are out.  THE DAMAGE IS DONE.

I want to go back and pull down just a couple of the scriptures of today.

Proverbs 16:28 - A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.

I don't often go to the dictionary, but today I pulled my American Heritage and found that a "perverse" man is found to be "wrongly self-willed or stubborn" and/or "marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict."  With that we see the Bible tells us they stir up dissension or problems, and when they gossip it separates them from friends.

Let me ask you this.  Joe comes running to you and lays on you without thinking, something about Jim.  Joe is your close friend, and you know Jim.  You listen, even if you do not want to, but you listen.  After a bit, Joe goes running back to Jim and talks to him.  Who do you think Joe is talking about this time?  Yes, put in your own name.  Listen to me, please.  "If someone will spread gossip to you, they will also spread gossip about you."  (my quote)  Learn to know who you can trust to talk to about personal issues, or better yet, when you need to really talk about something personal, TALK TO GOD.

Proverbs 26:20 - Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.

There are a whole lot of people  in the world today that I wold refer to as "pot stirrers."  Those would be someone who ride the fence to keep the feud going.  They run from one side to the other most often telling lies or stretching the truth.  Some people have feuded so long they forget why they are feuding and if no one stirred the pot, the feud would stop.  Put away the "sharp" object called your tongue and remember this.  If you have nothing good to say, KEEP YOUR MOUTH CLOSED.

And brothers and sisters, email, Facebook, and all those other forms of talking with your fingers is the same.  It comes from the same brain, and once out there, you cannot get it back.  Amen.

Now go forth sharing God's blessings with others.  Love ya.  Please pass on the love, it is always good to pass on love.

Pastor Dan