Tuesday 1/13/15 He's Coming Back 1

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You.  Please forgive me of my sins and please help me to repent of them and to keep moving forward helping others get ready for Your return.  Dear Lord, please be with Janet Wotring as she has surgery tomorrow.  Please watch over Patsy, Burt, Barbara, Vicki, Dolores, and others who need Your healing hand.  Please, Lord, help me with messages, for my mind has been drawing blanks lately.  I need You, dear Lord, I need You.  Please help me to recover from our lunch today where I got really bad food.  Lord, please help me now with the message and to get it dispatched.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, I have not put out a message for a week.  It is cold in the computer room, and my brain is dead.  Maybe God just wanted me to rest down a bit, I don't know.  Dolores and I were both at the doctor's today and on the way home we stopped at Evergreen Chinese Restaurant.  The food was really bad, I mean really bad.  So bad I almost gave it back to them on the parking lot.  The food on their steam table was not cooked first and they were depending on the steam table to heat it.  Well, it was all cold and not cooked through.  Anyway, please pray for God to put me back writing messages again.  I did listen to the doctors yesterday.  I had both of my knees injected and the doctor said to go home and rest them for 24 hours, and I listened.  Wow, that is different for me.  Anyway, I need to get writing and I do want to write about Jesus coming back.  We just went through Christmas and lived out His birth.  Now let's get ready for His return.

Tuesday:  January 13, 2015:  He's Coming Back (Day One)

Matthew 3:1 - In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and 2 saying, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near."  3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:  "A Voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'"  (NIV)

"Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is Near."  Just one way, my dear brothers and sisters, of saying it this way.  "Repent for He's Coming Back."  Let us take a look at what it means to "REPENT."

"Repent," according to the dictionary, means to "feel remorse," or self-reproach for what one did, or in some cases did not get done.  However, I want  to tell you what I think  the Bible means when talking about "repenting."  It is relating to sin, and it means we are to, yes, feel remorse, however, we are to TURN AND WALK AWAY FROM THAT SIN OR THOSE SINS.  If you are one who is going to the Lord and asking to be forgiven and not turning away from sin, then you for sure are NOT REPENTING.  John the Baptist told us that we need to repent.  Listen also to these words spoken through the Prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 30:15 - This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:  "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you have none of it."  (NIV)

The Prophet Isaiah said that the Lord said we are to repent and rest in our Salvation.  Again, it is about repenting.

Each year at the turn of the calendar, folks make all these New Year's resolutions, and the two biggies are to lose weight and exercise.  Now if we really want to lose weight, we must in most cases change our eating habits.  We must really repent of how we would eat and turn and walk away from it.  At one time I went to Weight Watchers, and their program really works if indeed you "repent" from those old eating habits.  One thing I learned fast was since I weighted in on Thursday evenings and had not had supper yet, I could go out and eat what I wanted.  So very often I would leave from Weight Watchers and go to the Burger King and get three Whoppers and eat all three of them.  I did not repent from my old ways of eating.  Well, sin is no different.  In fact, it is worse.

We go to God each day and ask Him to forgive us of our sins, but do we repent?  Not all of the time, sometimes maybe, but not all the time.  And even like Weight Watchers where I was ready to run out after my weigh-in and "woof" down three big Whoppers, some can hardly wait to get out of church on Sunday morning to go out while not really trying, they went right back to their sinful ways, and why?  Because they did not repent.  One Sunday I watched as one couple left church (second service) early.  They then went to the local food buffet and got in line.  After a bit a group of about 20 people from the same church came and cheated in line ahead of everyone else.  The two that left early could have got a table, but to jump in line ahead of others to me was not showing what they just learned in church, and yes, right there in front of God and all others, I called them out on it.  Did you learn how to cheat the line in church today?

Brothers and sisters, John The Baptist, who by description might look almost as wild as I do, came along and told everyone to REPENT, so today in the words of my Christian Brother, John The Baptist, I want to tell you to REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS NEAR.  I want to say it this way.  HE'S COMING BACK, HE'S COMING BACK.  Well, Glory, Praise God, praise God, praise God.  While the prophet Isaiah told us what God was telling him, and John The Baptist is preaching and teaching on repentance, who according to the Bible came next to tell everyone that they needed to repent?  And who should be telling folks today about needing to repent?  Do you have any idea?  Tomorrow we will find these things out.

Now go forth and share your blessings.  Please Repent of your sins, and know that I love ya.  Please share my love with others.

Pastor Dan

Dear Lord, please forgive me of my sins.  I truly believe that You died on the cross for me and that You were risen from the dead.  Please save me, Lord, please get me ready for Heaven.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.