Monday 1/5/15 Picking Up Trash!!

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You, and I really appreciate You.  Please forgive me of my sins.  Thanks for watching over family and friends, and thanks for keeping Your healing hand upon David and on Dolores and others we have been praying for.  Please, Lord, help me with a message this day and then to get it dispatched.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters:  It is off and running here at Carry The Light Ministries as we enter the first full week of January.  (Come on, spring.)  I was at my family doctor today, and I believe I was the only person in the waiting room who was not sick.  Yes, I have a lot of pain, but doc gave me a clean bill of health today, all honor and glory to God, all honor and glory to God, please shout with me, Praise the Lord.  I also had a call from Dave Fortney, the first I had heard his voice since his bad, bad fall.  He is coming along well, and on the phone we prayed and gave all glory to God for His healing hand.  Dave thanks all of you who have prayed for him and asks you to keep praying as he does have a rough road to travel.  Today is our son Matthew's birthday; he is 47 today.  We do not have a clue where he is or what he is up to.  We have not heard from him for over two years.  He did post on Facebook that he was now a Muslim sometime ago.  Please keep praying, warriors.

I don't know where this message might head today, for God just now gave it to me.  With that said, let me get started.

Monday:  January 5, 2015:  Picking Up Trash!!

Matthew 11:28 - "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  (NIV)

Psalm 68:14 - Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.  (NIV)

Exodus 33:14 - The Lord replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."  (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, do you like to pick up trash?  Brothers and sisters, I watch our trash collectors going out and collecting our trash week after week in all kinds of weather.  What great men and women they are to serve us so well.  Yes, we recycle things today.  Year ago while growing up in the city, we also recycled.  We had garbage trucks and trash trucks, which we called the ash men as they would get the ashes from those who burned coal.  One of my first jobs was on the garbage truck, where I was paid $50 a week and all I could eat.  (Okay, I made that one up to see if you are awake.)  However, we did have a garbage truck, and they took that to a hog farm and fed it to the pigs for food.  Now you cannot do that, even though the pigs were well fed.  Now they stuff them full of hormones to make them grow.  But let me get back to the message.

It seems to me that a lot of us, and yes, I said us, for I am guilty of this also ... we take our burdens, our trash, our sins, and we bundle them up and we give them to the Lord, and we say something like this.

Dear Father in Heaven, here are my sins, Lord, it is the trash from my past, and some of the worries and burdens that are even working on me this day, and Lord, I want to cast them over to You right now in the Name of Jesus who went to the cross to clear me of my sins of the past, my trash, Lord, and I ask You to wash me white of them.  In Jesus' Name, I give thanks.  Amen.

Now did you just read that, or did you take time to pray it?  How about it?  How about I bring that down and we pray it together right now and give our trash to the Lord?  Will you do that with me?  Here it is again.  Same prayer, only this time, pray it in faith.

Dear Father in Heaven, here are my sins, Lord, it is the trash from my past, and some of the worries and burdens that are even working on me this day, and Lord, I want to cast them over to You right now in the Name of Jesus who went to the cross to clear me of my sins of the past, my trash, Lord, and I ask You to wash me white of them.  In Jesus' Name, I give thanks.  Amen.

Now you are clean, STOP, DO NOT PICK THAT TRASH UP, you just gave it to God.  It is gone.  The Scripture in the Words of Jesus says this:  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  So we gave it over, why do we, and I said we, want to pick it up again?  Brothers and sisters, you do not throw the same trash out to the curb each week, it is just more junk and trash.  So why then do we want to take back that old trash, that old garbage that we have carried around over the years?  I mean, if you want to pick up trash, get a group together and pick up along the edge of a road, but stop picking up that old crap, and yes, I called it crap, that you gave over to God.  HE TOOK IT TO THE CROSS FOR YOU.

In the book of Psalms, and I wrote this one down for you, it tells us that we should "Praise the Lord, our God and Savior, who DAILY BEARS OUR BURDENS."  Yes, I put it in my words some, you can go back up and read it as it appears in the Bible.  Not only did He, our Lord Jesus, clean us of our trash, He picks it up daily if we mess up.  Our trash collectors come once a week, but Jesus is there for us day after day, after day after day.

Now I also want to leave you with this.  Everyone, except for Jesus, has a closet, yes, everyone, and no one wants that closet opened.  ONCE YOU GIVE IT TO JESUS, IT IS GONE.  Do not let anyone cast it up to you.  If someone tries to cast it up to you, take them aside and tell them how they can get rid of their past sins by going to Jesus.  You remember that scripture about throwing stones?  Let me help you.

John 8:7 - When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."  (NIV)

I, brothers and sisters, get sick and tired of hearing people say, "I remember him or I remember her."  Stop it, brothers and sisters, for when you were "Born Again," your past was taken away.  And if you never were "Born Again," then let's take care of that right now.  From the scriptures, Romans 10:9/10, and you can look this one up.  Let's confess those sins to the Lord.

Dear Father in Heaven, today is the day.  I want to be "Born Again."  I want to be washed in the Blood of Jesus, and Jesus, right now, according to the scriptures, I confess my love and faith in You.  I believe You died on the cross and on the third day were risen from the dead.  I have faith in that.  Save me right now, please, Jesus.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, please get used to seeing a prayer of salvation at the end of the message each day.  Those of you who are born again know why I must do this.  If you have questions about your salvation, please call us. If no one answers the number 717 691 8200, please leave your name and phone number and say you want to talk to someone about salvation.  You will be called back.

Now go forth and share your blessings.  Love ya.  Please share my love with others.

Pastor Dan