Saturday 9/19/15 Gifted (4)

Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Thanks for watching over family and friends and thanks for a great day with Camp Hill High School class of 1952. Thanks for letting me be able to witness again back at Allenberry Playhouse. Please heal and protect Jere and Diane Heinze and all of our friends from the past. Please be with those bikers as they head home from bike week, and Lord, please be with Pope Francis as he travels in Cuba and the United States. Please, Lord, protect all of Your children. Please, Lord, help me now with the message and the help me to get it dispatched. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters: Please pray for Jere and Diane Heinze. Jere, along with his brother John and sister Jane, own Allenberry Playhouse and Resort Inn, which was put on the market to sell. Dolores and I were back at Allenberry where we did Santa and Mrs. Claus for about 12 or 13 years. Today it brought back memories, memories of how Jere always permitted us to witness to people coming to the Christmas play. Now Jere has Parkinson's and  his wife Diane just fell a few days ago and broke her ankle in three places. Please also remember to keep our Catholic brothers and sisters in your prayers over the next week or so. Pray for all those also running the security details. Pray also for the unsaved and that many will come to Christ, come fully to Christ. Now let me get started with the message, Gifted.

Saturday: September 19, 2015: Gifted (Day Four)

1 Corinthians 13:17 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain; Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NIV)

By the way, when I look back and it talks about when I was a child and then look to the present a lot of things come to mind. Over the past few years I have been told I have "A Fib." Years ago, my mamma would tell me about the same. Danny, that was "A Fib." Monday I go get tested at my cardiologist. Years ago I was taken to the bathroom and had to "eat soap."

The Bible talks about "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Some of us did not put our childish things behind us when we came a man. One joke we would ask our friends when we were in our twenties was "what do you want to be when you grow up?" In verse 12 above it tells us we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Today I was asked to give the prayer before the meal at Dolores' class reunion. Of course before the prayer I addressed the class just a tad. I stated to them this. We all know where we have been, but do you know where you are going? And then I went into the prayer.

As we grow in Christ our visions of Jesus will become clearer and clearer to us. Someday we are going to see face to face our Lord Jesus and then and only then will we really understand the complete mystery of our relationship with Christ. Today we know in part, and we learn more and more as we study the Bible, and when we get to Heaven we will fully know, fully know about Jesus. PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD.

The Bible tells us we will then fully know even as I am fully known. Yes, Our Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus fully knows about us, clear back before we were in the womb. The Bible tells us that God knows every hair on our heads. (In that department He does not need to remember me as much as my hair is departing my head.)

Over the last few days we have been talking about all the gifts and we talked even about that gift of love. Of all the gifts we have had or will  have, our greatest gifts are Faith, Hope, and Love. Out of those three again the Bible tells  us that the greatest is love. We need Faith to believe in our Lord Jesus. We have Hope that all the promises in the Bible will be there for us when we arrive in Heaven. And we have Love and the greatest part of Love is not our love of others, or even our love for Jesus, the greatest part of Love is how Jesus loves us, loves us enough to die on the cross. There is a beautiful song that Carry The Light would sing when Joanne Fortney traveled with us, and she did a beautiful job of singing "He Loved Us With the Cross."

Brothers and sisters, I am praying for God to give me a new subject starting tomorrow. To wrap this one out, let me ask you this: Do you love Jesus above all else, even above your spouse? Above your children? Do you understand that Love is a great four-letter word that is not sex? Love God, Love your neighbor, and yes, love yourself. Is today the day you will come to Christ? Will you pray with me today to be forgiven?

Dear Father in Heaven, please forgive me this day, take away my past, wash it away for I believe in You, I believe that Jesus died for me on the cross and was risen from the dead. I believe that Jesus is alive and today I want to be alive in Christ. Help me, Father. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth and share and love Jesus.  Love ya.

Pastor Dan