Friday 5/30/14 Growing 4

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You.  Please forgive me of my sins, and please, Lord, help me with the message of today.  Help me to also get it dispatched.  Thanks, Lord, for watching over us and taking care of us, and Lord, by the word us, I am talking about all Your children who are standing beside You.  Thanks again for dying for us and for me, and Lord, I really do love You.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, today when I talk about growing, out of all the messages on growing this one might be the  most important.  Let me get right to it, as I am already a day late.

Friday:  May 30, 2014, Growing (Day Four)

Mark 2:1 - A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home.  2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them.  3 Some men came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four of them.  4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.  5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."  (NIV)

Mark 5:24 - A large crowd followed and pressed around Him.  25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.  27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, 28 because she thought, "if I just touch  His clothes, I will be healed."  29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.  30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him.  He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"  21 "You see the people crowding against you," His disciples answered.  "And yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'"  32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.  33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and, trembling with fear, told Him the whole truth.  34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."  (NIV)

God led me to two scriptures where people who had great faith in Jesus were healed.  Back in those days when Jesus walked the earth they got to see Jesus and see Him heal folks, to drive out demons, to even raise up the dead.  Still He healed those with great faith.  You know, brothers and sisters, our religion is indeed "faith-based."  Jesus still heals, still drives out demons and yes, He still raises up the dead.  If we are truly "born again," we will be raised up after our passing from this earth, and we will be raised up to live with Jesus.

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

You have prayed for me to be healed from pain and I have prayed to have the pain taken away.  I still have faith that Jesus will do this for me, and He will do it while I am still living and serving Him while I am here on earth.  Each day I try and grow my faith more and more.  I am trusting that I will be healed here on earth be it directly or through the hands of Jesus working through doctors.  So many folks have little faith, some not even believing everything in the Bible.  Look at all those pastors lining up to perform gay weddings.  That is not faith in God, that is God's people putting faith in earthly pleasures and God hate them for that.  I am not judging them, that is in the Bible, that if we go with the world, then we are turning away from Jesus.

So brothers and sisters, we must grow, we must grow in ourselves, we must grow in God, and growing in God will help us to grow in ourselves.  If we stay with God in all we do, then we will grow in all things good.  We will grow in wisdom, we will grow in strength, we will get stronger in our faith with God and we will grow in all we do.  So we do need to pull on those items of fertilizer that we talked about.  We need to feed and water our brains with the Word of our Lord coming from our Bible and from our Hymnals, and from good daily devotionals like Our Daily Bread, and we need to spend time, lots of time, talking to our Lord Jesus.  In the car, go back a few years, put down the cell phone and put a good CD in your CD player, and sing along with it.  Get some good stuff, and really sing with it.  Let it grow in your heart.  You see we need to grow in our faith, but we must grow in faith in our mind, in our heart, and in our soul.  If we really get down to really growing in God, we will and I say we will grow in all things.  I am writing this and again I think God has me writing it for me.  I need to put away, I am hurting and calling out for God to heal me, and I need to get up in the morning and start singing praises to and for Him.  Yes, I hurt, I really hurt, but we have warriors, men and women of our military, with their legs shot of, and I have mine.  Maybe God is letting me feel the pain to appreciate the fact that I still have my arms and legs and some of our warriors do not.

So come on, brothers and sisters, let's get with it, let's get up each day and talk to Jesus and look at what we have and not what we don't have, for surely we have all of our needs.  Are you, my dear brothers and sisters, with me on this one?  Are you ready to pray and turn this day around?  Are you ready to grow in your faith-walk today?  Let's get going with this prayer.

Dear Father in Heaven:  Forgive  me when I whine and help me press forward in my walk with Jesus.  Help me to grow in my faith in Him and in all I do with and for Jesus.  Lord, be with those who lost body parts in their work for our country, and Lord, if it is Your will, carry some of my pain, but if it is not Your will, then help  me deal with it.  You holding onto me will be needed, of course.  I love You, Lord, and I come to You this day in need of Your forgiveness and Your maybe even taking me to the woodshed if You know, Lord, what I mean.  In Jesus' Name, I want to grow and grow.  In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings, and please pray a lot and read your Bible, and do some singing of good old hymns.  Love ya.  Please pass on that love.

Pastor Dan