Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please wash my sins of the day away. Thank You, Father, for doing that. Dear Lord, please be with our traveling family and keep them safe. Watch over all families, our online flock, our flock at The Bridges, and please watch over all of those who are in need of food that come to our small food pantry. Thank You, Lord, for all things. Lord, I am very tired and I need You to send me a message and also keep me alert and awake as I work on this message for You. Please then help me to dispatch it. Also, Lord, our copies of "Our Daily Bread" went missing in the mailing. Please help and protect our reorder. Lord Jesus, I pray for Matthew and in the name of Jesus I pray he will come back to You and get out of the Muslim religion. Lord, I have not heard from Bobbie in Florida for a long time. Please watch over her. In the mighty Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen and amen.
Good evening, dear brothers and sisters. What a great day we had today. It started out with God waking us to live another day. I then took our antique hearse (I still ride in the front, thank you) to our local food store to fetch their day-old bread and goodies to bring home for the food pantry. It was a great haul. Next off to The Bridges where Pam joined us for a gospel music sing-along. Martin Martin Jr., our youngest Yorkshire, went along. A good time was had by all. Back home and then after lunch down to the food pantry to put all the bread in freezers. God is good. I do admit that at our age, it is getting harder to "move," but praise God we get it done with the help that God sends us.
Let me just take one minute of your time and tell you that I love all of you. Each day I want to write more and more for God. I have a growing passion to work those fields of Harvest. If after 20 years of writing daily messages, only one person would come to Jesus and be saved, then all of the time was worth it. Again, I really love all of you, and a lot of you I have never met. Now let me get to the message, Restoration.
Thursday: June 26, 2014, Restoration (Day Four)
1 Peter 5:8 - Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. (NIV) (NIV = New International Version)
For the past two days we have been talking about restoration and I have been talking about my friend Tom Mozer's 1957 Chevrolet Two-Door Hardtop which he restored, with the help of others. We have talked about different stages of those cars, and if his car had a "Full Restoration." As I recall it did not. If my memory serves me, the body was not taken off the frame. Again, his car was beautiful and the frame was in good shape.
In our scripture today we are told this: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." We are to be self-controlled and alert. Just before I started to write the message, Dolores sat beside me and prayed that I would be alert for this and to get the word out. But we must be alert looking always for Satan and his workers, and trust me when I tell you that Satan has lots of workers with lots of ways to get after you. He will attack you at your weakest point and if he cannot get we who are saved, he will go after ones we love. We must have self-control, and brothers and sisters, in today's world, in traffic it is easy to lose that self-control. We who have a Christian emblem on the car and then lose control and get mad on the road, we might give someone the "bird." To be fully restored, we must do our very, very best to walk with Jesus. Please do not let your guard down.
As for that '57 Chevrolet Two-Door Hardtop, if it were parked out on the lawn for a picture and then let it parked there for even a year, we would see rust starting to form. Let's look at this scripture:
Matthew 6:19 - "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal." (NIV)
This beautiful car needs to be garaged and taken care of so the rust does not get to the frame and moisture get to the interior. As I have told you, I am a motor head and yes, I have some old cars. Last year when I pulled the cover back on my old Caddy "Humpback" which is stored inside my car barn, the headliner had fallen. I have also found mold because of the dampness. So what must be done? Well, I must take it to the people who work on headliners.
Now let me tie these together. We must stand guard, and while we do not put on a coat of wax, we must put on our armor of God. I will talk about the armor of God in another message, God willing. We also need to get fuel. That antique car will not run without fuel, and we cannot either. Gas goes in the car, we eat food, good food, and yes, sometimes the gas comes out of us. (Just seeing if you are awake.) Again, we have tools to protect us from Satan. First, and above all else, we have JESUS, yes,the great protector. We also have our Bibles that we can read and study. And yes, we can pray and talk to Jesus, and we should also go to church,and again I say a good church. We can also have Christian friends in our circle of friends. Here is a bold statement. You are better off with less friends than having friends who do not walk with Jesus.
Our scripture of today also tells us this: "Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."
Here we can see that we are to "resist him," meaning resist the devil and we are to stand firm in our faith. It also tells us that our brothers (sisters) all over the world are under attack. If you watch the news, you will see this daily. And as for that thief stealing things. You better watch that old car for those '57 Chevrolets are rare, and someone might steal it. Brothers and sisters, we need to watch over our families and cover them daily in prayer. Regardless of where they live, where they travel, cover your family, your friends, and even your enemies in prayer. And yes,when you hit the road in your daily driver or that restored '57 Chevrolet, please take time to pray before leaving home.
Enough for today. Tomorrow, getting FULLY RESTORED, in our Restoration message. What parts must be restored to finish our restoration?
Now go forth and share your blessings, and pray and watch out for Satan. Love ya. Please pass on my love.
Pastor Dan
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