Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please forgive me for not showing it very well as I have been slacking in my daily writing. I offer up no excuses, Lord, except that I am a sinner and in need of forgiveness of my sins. Please help me, Lord, to get back into writing and get my head to think about working for You and off my pain level. Dear Lord, please grant traveling protection to Alan, Patty, Pam, Art, Elaine, and others who will be in the air or on the roads. Please watch over John who has had a knee replaced. Please also be with his friends, Tom Kane and Don Coffin, as they all need Your healing hand, Lord. Lord, please be with the Saylor family, the Emig family, the Crockett family, the Lehman family, our family and flock at The Bridges, and our flock on this line. Now, Lord, please help me with the daily message and then to get it dispatched. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I am sorry I have been messing up and not getting messages out in a timely fashion. I have not been to the computer since last Wednesday. The only excuse I can even come close to offering you is that my pain level has taken over my whole being, including my little brain. Let me bring you up to speed on the messages on Five Difficult Things. Here are the five, and I know there are many more, but these are the five I am writing about now.
1. Forget your past!
2. Don't worry!
3. Love your enemies!
4. Repent!
5. Turn From Sin!
So far I have covered number one, Forget your past, number four, Repent, and number five, Turn from Sin.
Today let me get back to work and go to number three, "Love your enemies."
Monday: September 29, 2014: Five Difficult Things (Day Four)
Matthew 5:43 - "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (NIV)
"Love your enemies" is really a very difficult thing to do. Ask any person who has been through a hard divorce. Ask them what they think about their ex. Some hold grudges for a long, long time. I can truthfully say that I love my exes; yes, there are two of them. What is so neat is that Dolores loves them also. Some of loving your enemies goes back to forgetting your past once it has been forgiven by God. I want you to think about this. Our Lord God hates sin, but He really loves us, we who are sinners. That lesson we need to learn when we talk about people who are living in sin or a lifestyle that we do not agree with. We need to be like our Lord God and love the sinners and hate their sin. Sometimes it is difficult. Think about this, a few people will stand up and say they do not believe in God, they might make the statement, there is no God. Then this God-hating person plants a garden and God makes it rain. Does it not rain on the garden of the one who does not believe? God sure does set good examples of how He expects us to live. Our job for our Lord God is to get that non-believer to turn around and be a believer.
We need to first get over the fact that "love is not sex." Making love with someone does not mean you had "sex with them." Making love with someone might be just talking with them when they are down or sharing your love of Jesus with them. What better way is there to make love with someone than to get them to come to Jesus? Think about that one, folks, think really hard about that one.
One of the great commandments is to "Love your neighbor." But what if your neighbor is one really nasty person? It really might make your job as a Christian stronger, God might have planned it this way so as to strengthen our love for Him. After all, if we can love this nasty neighbor, pray for them and do nice things for them, would that not make our love stronger for our Lord Jesus? I want to give you some homework. Do you have anyone in your life that you have been avoiding, someone that you could easily not like or maybe even hate? Someone doing something you disagree with, and it might even be happening at PTA or maybe even where you go to church. Over the years many churches have split because of in-fighting at the church, and it got so bad that even Jesus could not get it straight. But if Jesus did come in, He surely would love everyone. Think about some pastors in these cases, in-fighting gets started and then first one side then the other goes to the pastor to straighten it out. More than likely caused by families who have been going to that church for a long, long time. Think about it, brothers and sisters. For your homework, think about those who you might not like, or you might even hate, and start praying with them, and also at the same time pray for yourself to work things out. Yes, it is Difficult, but our Lord Jesus tells us if we want to get to heaven, we must do these things. Let me know if you need help.
Now go forth and share your love and blessings with others, even your enemies. Love ya. And please pass on my love.
Pastor Dan
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