Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please forgive me of my sins of today and help me walk nearer and nearer to You. Please watch over all those who are traveling, and Lord, be on the road with all folks as we enter the big holiday week coming up. Lord, be with families, and Lord, be with all those who work for You as they walk out in faith into the fields of harvest. Lord, help Pastor Larry staff their Vacation Bible School. Lord, be with our people, and Lord, please hold me up, let me lean on You even more. Again, Lord Jesus, I love You. Please now help me with the message and then help me to dispatch it. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.
Good Friday evening, my dear brothers and sisters. It was a good day here at the Southern Location of the North Pole, and tomorrow, like most all Saturdays, we are expecting families to come and pick up groceries. We, with the help of others, purchase most of the food that we give to the needy. This morning I saw a good buy on hot dogs, so I called and ordered a few. 250 pounds of them. All folks coming to the food pantry get hot dogs, maybe because I love hot dogs. They also get a lot of canned veggies. Tomorrow's families will receive six brown bags full of food, plus some bread, and those hot dogs. But above all else what they will be sent out with is prayer and an anointing from God, through our hands. EVERY PERSON who comes for food gets in a prayer circle and we pray for them. No exceptions. We are not government funded, and the government will not tell us we cannot pray with them. SOMEONE PLEASE SAY AMEN ... The most important food we hand out is the "Bread of Life." The love of Jesus. We also have Bibles for those who do not have one. Please pray for the Ministries of Carry The Light and for God to give us the strength to Carry The Light of Jesus into the world, right here from our home. Thank you. Now on to the message.
Friday: June 27, 2014, Restoration (Day Four)
Galatians 6:1 - Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (NIV)
Let me once again look back to that 1957 Chevrolet two-door hardtop of my dear friend Tom Mozer. As we wrap up this week's messages on Restoration, I want to point out that his car, the beauty, would not be fully restored until some of those last parts would be in place. Be you have the body off frame restoration or not, it really does not make a difference for my writing, but what does make a difference is this. All this work on this car or any other that is restored would not move from the spot, if a battery that is "fully charged." A Battery that is in place and will fire that engine. As in a person, it takes many, many parts, but from my thinking, what good did it all do if one would drop in a battery that did not have "life in it"? Would you take a beautiful restored '57 Chevrolet or any other restored antique car on the road with a "dirty old battery" that has poor connections that are covered with rust and acid? Of course not! So why let others, people, your best friends, go out without being "fully charged"?
As I look at our scripture of today, we are being instructed, and again, "brothers" in the Bible means brothers and sisters today, we are being instructed to help our sisters and brothers who have fallen into sin. Remember all that help Tom needed restoring that car? Different people did different things on it, while Tom worked on many, many pieces.
When one of us, one of us who slips and falls into sin, be we saved already or who have never come to Christ, our brothers and sisters in Christ are to come in and gently help restore the one who has fallen into sin. We are warned that when we go to help one who has fallen into sin, that we also do not get taken into sin. We must understand that the devil has these things he puts in front of us to try and make us stumble. Let me try and set up an example here. Maybe you have a friend that has a drinking problem, and they have fallen into sin at a local pub. They do not stop for one drink but are hanging out in that bar for hours and hours spending all their money on booze. You decide you are going to go and belly up to the bar and try and bring your brother out of that sin, but while talking with him, people start buying you drinks. Don't go to a place where you might be pulled in, get to that one who has sinned on at least an even playing field, and also take other brothers (sisters) with you to talk to the fallen one. Do you see where I am coming from?
So this week we talked about how the body is rebuilt, not just on the car, but our body. How we shower up, get shaved, (not an option for everyone) and we are looking really good, but so far we are not "fully restored," our restoration is not finished yet. What is really missing? We have not put that battery in. We have not put in the one that "makes us come to life." Of course I am talking about our Lord Jesus Christ. We are one body made up of different parts, but if one of those parts is not Jesus Christ, then the other parts will not work together over a period of time. That restored car might go down the road for a time with a worn dirty battery, but sooner or later, and more than likely sooner, it will come to a stop. The same with a person, a person who is trying to go it alone without Jesus.
I want to tell you right now, I would much sooner have an old car with a dent or two in it, but one that has a new fully charged battery in it, so I know it will at least start. Yes, I would sooner walk as I do, struggling to walk, but walking with Jesus, knowing He will, as long as I am faithful to Him, hold me up and keep me going. Forget about that beauty on the outside for what good is it, if you do not have Christ in your heart? Sooner or later you will find yourself at a dead end in life, and you will be looking for a way up.
How about it, why not complete that Restoration today, right now? Yes, and you just knew I was going to end the series this way. You are all waiting for it. So let's do it. Let's come to Christ to be renewed. Let us get "Fully Restored" right now. Let us install that new battery, that one that is full of life and the one that will never discharge. The one and only one with a "life-long promise that will never fail." Ready?
Dear Father in Heaven: Please wash me white as snow. Wash away all my sins and come into my heart this day. I love You, Jesus. And I pray in Your most wonderful name, asking to be fully restored. Amen.
Now go forth and share your blessings. Love ya. Please pass on my love.
Pastor Dan
P.S. What is in store for next week? I do not have a clue, for Jesus has not told me yet. I must, I really must, "wait upon the Lord."
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