Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please forgive me of my sins and mess-ups. Thank You for all that You do for all of us. Thanks for hearing our prayers and acting on them according to Your will for us. Please be with the "Men of Harmony" and intervene with the group. Please send them someone to play the piano. Lord, please keep watch over Ken and also Emily. Thanks for traveling protection over those we have been praying for this summer. Please keep that blessing going for all this summer. Please be with our president and governor s they lead our military and our guard units. Please be with all those who have served this country and who are serving it now. Now, Lord, if You will bless me with another message and then help me dispatch it, I sure would appreciate it. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.
Hi, brothers and sisters. What a great Monday. It feels a tad like summer here at the Southern Location of the North Pole. Praise God for air conditioners. AMEN.
God has pointed me to the subject of Encourage and Encouragement for this week. I pray that the messages on encouragement will help to encourage you to keep moving on in your life, regardless of what your problem or problems might be. The truth is, we all need to draw on our Lord to be encouraged, and we also need to encourage each other.
Most days I wake up in a good mood and start singing, sometimes just making up silly little songs as I go along. The best place I know to get encouraged is looking in the Bible. I also know that all you homeowners need encouraged as the school tax notices are in the mail. So let's get started.
Monday: July 7, 2014, Encouraged (Day One)
Hebrews 3:12 - See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. (NIV)
God pointed me to this scripture to start the series this week. I want to point out to all of you that we are to "encourage each other" and the one big reason we are to do this is so people hang in there with the Lord. The way the world is today, it could be easy to cross to the other side. Some days we might think the Lord is not walking with us, but let me tell you this, our Lord Jesus is not going to walkaway from you, and that should be some encouragement for you to start this day. If you and the Lord are not walking together, it is you and not the Lord who took the walk-about. So, my dear brothers and sisters, if you see someone slipping away from our Lord, encourage them to come back and walk with Him.
Psalm 10:16 - The Lord is King forever and ever; the Nations will perish from His land. 17 You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry. 15 Defending the fatherless and the oppressed in order that man, who is of earth, may terrify no more. (NIV)
This should encourage all of us who love the Lord, for it tells us that the Lord is King forever. Nations, nations, even ours, will perish, but our King Jesus will last forever. And brothers and sisters, to encourage you even more ... If we love Him and live for Him, we will be with Him, regardless of what happens here. We are also to help the fatherless and oppressed. As we look at what is going on at our Southern Border, do you think, think maybe GOD MIGHT BE TESTING US? Think about these children coming without parents, are they not oppressed, and a lot of them fatherless. We need to stop all this political stuff, and we believers should be thinking about how many of our churches might sponsor the children. Think about it, folks. The song tells us, Jesus loves the little children, ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD. Not just American kids. His love is unconditional. Do you remember how after our war with Vietnam, Fort Indiantown Gap was opened for families from Vietnam to come through and how different churches sponsored some of those families? You do remember that, right?
Just think about how America is blessed. While some of the environmentalists want to block all things that we try to do. The pipeline that is needed and should run through Lancaster County. The people said run it just outside of Lancaster County, just do not put it here. Gosh, did we sort of push those Amish out of the way? Many of our churches are now feeding way more than they should while others do little to help. A lot of our big churches in the cities are falling down. Why? I think it had a lot to do with when the neighborhoods started to change colors, those running the churches would not invite in their new neighbors.
We need to be getting up each day and encouraging each other. When people come here for food, I talk to them about getting jobs. I try and encourage them. It is plain to see some of them do not want to go to work. Listen to me on this, regardless how you feel about those from Vietnam, our churches welcomed them as I said. They came and got help from the churches and Christian people and right now you in most part do not see them in a welfare line. Maybe, just maybe if we welcome these children from Central America and encourage them, they will grow up and be productive adults.
1 Thessalonians 3:2 - We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the Gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, 3 so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. (NIV)
2 Thessalonians 2:16 - May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. (NIV)
Here we see in scripture how God has sent great men of God to encourage people, and in 2 Thessalonians we see the scripture that could this very day be used by pastors as a Benediction. As a pastor, I use the same each week, as I send our flock at The Bridges out to face the world, so to speak. To me each message should encourage the faithful, and the Benediction should always be an encouragement to the flock. Amen.
One of the best encouragers in our family is our daughter Danelle. It seems regardless of what might get her down, she is still willing to help encourage others. Sometimes, and I know this for a personal fact, sometimes it is hard to encourage others when pain is biting at you. But that is when we must look at the Lord for encouragement and look at each other and lean on each other and encourage each other. AMEN.
Now go forth and encourage each other and you can do that by sharing your blessings. Love ya. Please pass on my love. Pastor Dan
You can also encourage others by loving them. Amen.
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