Tuesday 5/27/14 Growing

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You.  Please forgive me of my sins, and Lord, please help me with the messages of this week, and help me in my growing and growing of things.  Dear Father, watch over this line and protect it please, and while we are talking about growing, Lord, please help this line to keep growing.  After helping me with the message, please then help me dispatch it.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Brothers and sisters:  Another beautiful day here at the Southern Location of the North Pole.  Today I want to get straight to the message about growing and growth.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014, Growing (Day One)

2 Peter 3:17 - Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.  18 But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be glory both now and forever.  AMEN.  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, God has planted on my mind the subject of growth and growing.  Growing is something we should be doing all the time, and we should work at it.  In some things we will grow without thinking about it, and in fact a lot of us don't want to grow in one way, but it is good for us.  That one thing we all are doing is "growing older" and we do it each day.  This week I want to bring forth a few things we need to grow in and how we can do it.

In the spring many of us think about growing things and things that grow.  At one time we planted a large garden.  Now my garden consists of four tomato plants and maybe one or two more that will come up wild.

A few weeks back I purchased four tomato plants, two of which grow mixed yellow and red, grown together.  One was yellow and my last was a yellow cherry tomato plant.  My dear friend Grant got down and planted them for me.  When he planted them, he added two things, water and fertilizer.  I will add this as the plants grow.  At the base of all growth is our Lord God.  Let me say that again, at the base of all growth is our Lord God.  Except for one thing, of course, and that is the growth of evil, things that go against the will of God.  Each spring as we finish up winter, and it seems it does not make a difference how hard the winter was, we get growth in the spring.  Plants come up new, those bare trees start to bud and then bloom.  Oh, yes, we water them and we add fertilizer and work at them, we trim them and keep them in shape, however, what we don't take care of God does, and what we do take care of would not grow for us without the help of God.  Here is an example.  Plants and things that grow from the ground need water, and who sends forth the water?  God does!  The plants need sunlight, and who sends forth the sun and the warmth of the sun?  God does!  And as for fertilizer, God has given me six goats and they bring forth that good ripe stuff that makes the plants grow.

However, this week I want to talk to all of you about how we need to grow and what we need to grow in.  First, we need to "Grow in God!"  No doubt we need to grow in God, and that should be above all else in our growth.  Years ago when I was sent to Exxon Dealer Development School, one of the first things I was taught was you needed to grow or go.  You needed to keep growing your business or go out of business.  Now while we do not want to go out of "business with God" if we do not grow with God, we could be attacked by Satan and be put out of business with our Lord Jesus.

So how do we grow with God?  This week we are going to go step by step as we look at growing with God by growing our strength in and with God.  We will look at our walking with God and see how we can walk better with Him.  We also need to grow our faith in Christ, and we need to work on that daily.  We are also going to look at a few things that are necessary in growing things.

We need a good foundation for growth.  We need good fertilizer to help with our growth.  We need to "water" our growth in Christ.  So here is your homework for today and it will require you to use a fertilizer, and we will call for a very heavy dose of this fertilizer to get us going.  So what is this fertilizer?  Prayer, my dear brothers and sisters, prayer.  We also need to add in other things to help in our growth.  There are two in my closing today.

One:  Go forth now and SHARE YOUR BLESSINGS.  Sharing is one thing we need to learn to grow in.  Two:  Love ya, and please PASS ON MY LOVE.  Love others and keep passing that love on.

Pastor Dan