Tuesday 9/8/15 Lost (1)

Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please forgive me as today I started out without talking to You first. Thanks for listening when I finally remembered. Lord, please help us locate Missy. Lord, thanks for the three new lives that touch us. Please bless Emit, Kian and Grace, and we give thanks for these new babies, these new gifts from You. Please help me now with the message and to get it dispatched. In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters. Regardless of your religion, please pray for safety when Pope Francis is in Philadelphia, PA, later this month. You know all Christian religions are under attack from terrorists and there will be a million or more people going to see the leader of the Catholic Church. Pray for a peaceful event, and pray for people to remember that he is not Jesus and they should not bow down to anyone other than our Lord Jesus. Please pray for us to locate Missy, our one beautiful big house cat. Yes, it is our hunting and hunting for her this evening that God has me taking a look at the subject, Lost. So let me get started and see how this works out.

Tuesday: September 8, 2015: Lost (Day One)

Luke 15:3 - Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home." (NIV)

One of my favorite pictures of Jesus is the one where Jesus is shown with the lost sheep in his arms. That picture hung on my office wall at the Central Dauphin School District Transportation Center from 1984 until I left the district in 1993. This picture reminded me and still reminds me of the fact that I was once a "lost sheep." Yes, the scripture is a parable telling us that we who were lost are welcomed in the arms of Jesus and also there are more lost out there to tell about Jesus. In other words, we become the shepherd of the Lord and we are to seek out the lost sheep. And while in most cases we might not put one of those people lost in our arms, we lead them in, in a different way.

Today our dear house cat Missy is missing and she has done this before, and I pray she is not outside for she has been declawed. I pray she is not stuck under some broken pieces of our old wooden back steps that I cannot get to. I don't know how many times this sweet thing has gone missing, and each time we find her we rejoice and praise God. So why am I talking about my cat on this subject? It is not just the cat, it is how many times we welcomed her home and Jesus, our Lord Jesus will welcome us back time and time again. Each time we slip and fall and come back to Christ there is rejoicing in Heaven. So if you are a person who has slipped away from God, please, will you come back today, regardless of how many times you have walked away? WILL YOU COME BACK NOW? Please, if you are lost, please pray this sinner' prayer with me. Come home, come home, ye who are weary, come home! Today I am back with Jesus, and I have been for a long, long time, so today I am leading you who are lost in this prayer. Please come back today.

Dear Father in Heaven, I confess this day that I have walked away. Please, Lord, I want to come back. Forgive me, Lord, I do believe in You, and I confess myself to You again this day. Thanks for taking me back. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Please cover me with prayers for awhile. I have been in pain since a 1990 motorcycle accident and the pain level is out of control. I will also need at least one surgery in the near future. I will keep you posted. However, with that said, I am going to work for our Lord Jesus some way each day. NO TURNING BACK.

Now go forth and serve Jesus. Love ya.

Pastor Dan