Tuesday 4/29/14 Good Guys!

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You, and I ask as I start another day that You would clean me of my sins of yesterday.  Thank You, dear Lord, for taking us through another night and for watching over our family and friends.  Thank You for taking Sue and Mike safely home with their trailer.  Lord, bless them as they ride motorcycle in Your name.  Be with Vicki as she has a brain scan, be with Patsy and Burt, Ruby, Eleanor, Bob and Sharon.  Please keep watch over Dolores and yes, Lord, help me deal with pain.  And Lord, we pray our Matthew returns to You and then to us.  Lord, please be with our president and our military and all our veterans.  Lord, please send good weather on Saturday for the troop rally.  Lord, please help those in the way of the storms.  We confess, Lord, we do not understand why some of these events happen, for we know You are in charge, we just have faith and are happy You indeed are in charge.  Now, Lord, help me with the message of today and then help me to dispatch it.  And Lord, protect this computer from hackers.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Brothers and sisters, for months and months we have been asking you to pray for our Matthew, for he just seemed to have "written us off."  Now please pray even more as it seems he has "written off our Lord Jesus" and has become a Muslim!  No words can tell you of our heart pain on this, but still we stand firm in Jesus and may I had ALWAYS WILL!!!  A few prayer requests today.  Vicki gets a brain scan tomorrow.  (If I were to have a brain scan, I am sure the doctors would not find anything!)  Please keep Patsy and Burt in your prayers and also Barbara from York and Barbara from Florida.  Please include Dolores and me in your daily prayers as pain is attacking us as we push forward to work for God.  Now on to the "Good Guys."

Tuesday:  April 29, 2014, Good Guys (Day One)

Luke 10:25 - On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.  "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  26 "What is written in the law?" He replied, "How do you read it?"  27 He answered:  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself."  28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied.  "Do this and you will live."  (NIV)

Here we find an expert on the law going after Jesus.  He is going to test Jesus.  Well, first we should never put Jesus to the test except in one thing.  Do you know what that is?  I will help you.  It is in your giving to the Lord.  You cannot out-give the Lord if you give in faith to Him.  Now this leads me to say this.  Some people get upset when they see Christians that "have money."  I know and have known many Christian business people who are very wealthy.  And those who give from their hearts are indeed some of the "Good Guys" I am talking about.  Today's word Guys to me covers girls and boys, women and men, ladies and gentlemen.  Okay, guys, I think I have that straight.

Anyway, when the teacher of the law asked Jesus what had to be done to inherit eternal life, Jesus answered with a question. Don't you love it when you ask a question and instead of the answer you are asked another question?  Reminds me of my late daddy who was a math teacher.  I would ask him how to do a problem, and he would say, let me see how you would do it.  The teacher of the law asked Jesus the question and Jesus turned the tables on him and asked old teach the question, and teach answered with this:  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself."  The teacher knew how to do this, he knew the way to eternal life.

So, folks, where have we heard these words before?  Well, if you said that sounds like the Two Greatest Commandments, that is correct.

Matthew 22:36 - "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"  37 Jesus replied:  "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38  This is the first and greatest commandment.  39 And the second is like it:  'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  (NIV)

Now I don't want to confuse you,but in my writing from Luke, "old teach" was the teacher of the law.  From Matthew, "Teacher" is our Lord Jesus.  I want to bring out as I talk about "Good Guys."  Just being a good guy does not get you into heaven. Now back to Luke for a minute.

Luke 10:28 - "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied.  "Do this and you will live."  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, in today's message we talked bout the two Greatest Commandments.  While the "Ten Commandments" are needed, we need to study them and learn them, but the bottom line is that if you truly live by the two Greatest Commandments you will have followed those original Ten.  I want you to really think hard about that.

Tomorrow we re going to go deeper into the Good Guy and talk about the "Parable of the Good Samaritan."  Okay, enough for today.

Now go forth and share your blessings.  Love ya.  Please pass on my love to others.  yes, of course, by all means, pass on the Love of Jesus, that's a given.

Pastor Dan

P.S.  We have new folks who came online.  I just want to remind all, you may use anything I write, but if you do, please do not put a tag line on it like "if you pass this on to ten people and back to the writer you will be blessed."  Just love God, He will do the blessings.