Wednesday 1/7/15 Showers 2

Dear Father in Heaven:  I love You.  I love You very much.  I really appreciate all that You do for us.  Please be with Josephine as she starts chemo and please be with Martha Campbell as she takes care of her aging mother.  Please also be with Beverly as she is in a great deal of pain.  Lord, please be with the families of those who were gunned down in Paris today, and also be across this country protecting our police officers.  Lord, please also be with Your people in this very cold weather.  Lord, thanks for taking us out today and bringing us back home safe.  Now Lord, please help me with the message of today and to get it dispatched.  I really do love You and I want to work harder for You each day.  Help us daily to be a good witness for You.   In Jesus' Name, I pray and give thanks.  Amen.

Brothers and sisters, it is cold, really cold.  Please pray for those who have lost their heat, have frozen pipes, etc.  Pray for those who must be out in the weather.  This morning I watched as the trash men were riding the back of that big truck.  You see pictures of firefighters with ice on them from fighting fires out in the cold.  It really makes me want to get to the message on Showers.  Pray for the families of the ones shot to death, not just in Paris, but at our military hospital in El Paso, Texas.  Also there was a shooting at an airport in Ohio.  Come back and get Your bride, Jesus, please come back for Your bride.  Let's get to Showers.

Salvation Wednesday:  January 7, 2015:  Showers (Day Two)

Psalm 1:1 - Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night.  (NIV)

Today as we traveled from our home, we were bundled up in our car that has seat heaters.  We drove out past the Conodoguinet Creek and there the ducks and geese were splashing around in the water taking, well, a shower.  It just never ceases to amaze me how God has taken care of his critters.  If you really take time to think about it, there is not a day that goes by that our Good Lord does not shower us with blessings of some type or another.  I want you to really think about it.  Not counting those basic needs that God blesses us with daily, how long has it been since God laid a blessing on you?  A month?  A day?  What about an hour?  When God led me to the scriptures today, I really want to point out that God really wants to bless us, and sometimes when we think we are not being blessed, maybe we should look at what we are doing wrong.  In Psalm 1:1, it tells us we will be blessed if we do NOT WALK with the wicked, meaning evil.  We are not to be standing with those who are sinners, meaning those who do not want to change their ways.  Yes, will people who do those things be blessed in some ways?  Sure they will, but we will be blessed so much more if we indeed walk with our Lord and talk to Him and meditate day and night.

I confess that I do not spend nearly enough time talking with Jesus, and I can tell when I get that way, things do not go as well as when I am really talking with Him.  Still, we are so blessed.  Now I said that God will send blessings to all of us, but your blessing might be more if indeed we are living according to His will for us.  If I talk about those showers of blessings and the showers being rain showers in the spring, God sends those showers of blessings even on those who hate Him.  Also, the greatest blessing of all that we receive from God is His love for us.  He died for us, and I want you to think about this.  Today those mass killers, those terrorists who did all that harm, God truly loves them and even died for them.  He will indeed forgive them if they would come to Him and ask Him.

Psalm 94:12 - Blessed is the man You discipline, O Lord, the man You teach from Your law.  (NIV)

Look at what this scripture tells us.  Blessed is the man that God disciplines.  When we are disciplined by God, we learn to love Him even more.  God tries to teach us His laws.  This is why we need to be digging into His Word, the Bible, and we need to be going to a GOOD church where the Pastor preaches THE TRUTH and does not water it down.  I think there are times when God "spanks us" and then picks us up and hugs us.  And yes, this is the way we need to raise our children.  Did you or do you ever stop and think about it that sometimes some of our best blessings come from God when He tells us NO?!  Yes, brothers and sisters, sometimes NO is an answer.  Sometimes when we pray, we think the blessings are instant.  Sometimes God uses us to answer our prayer for others and even answer our own prayers.  Let me take a minute and explain that one.

I know of people who will say, I have been praying for a job, and we had a lot of those who came for food at the food pantry.  "I have been praying for a job."  Then I would ask them, did you go and put in some applications?  Well, no, they did not even put in an application for the job.  I mean, how do we expect God to answer a prayer if we do not want to even help God when we are praying to Him?  Another one is, and it is in the Bible ... You know of someone who needs something, maybe they really need some food.  You pray about it, and then you, well, you have heard me use this term -- you put "feet on your prayers."  Maybe you just purchase them a ten-pound sack of potatoes and put them on their porch.  When we learn to "work for and with God," and we lay blessings on others in the name of our Lord, our very own blessings will increase.  God will shower us with even more blessings.  I want to sing another verse of that old hymn, "There Shall Be Showers of Blessing."  This is the fourth verse.

There shall be showers of blessings.
O that today they might fall.
Now as to God we're confessing.
Now as on Jesus we call!

(Refrain)
Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need.
Mercy-drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.

You can see in this verse we get those showers of blessings when we are confessing and also as we call on Jesus.  So with that said, let us get to the confessing.  Remember, we are closing daily with a call for Salvation.

Dear Father in Heaven, I confess I am a sinner, and I am calling on You this day to save me from myself.  Renew me today, bless me with being able to get into heaven when it is my time.  Save me, I love You, Jesus.  I ask for the blessing of Salvation above all other blessings, Lord.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

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

Pastor Dan