Dear Father in Heaven: I love You and I give You all honor and glory for a safe passage through last night and today. All honor and glory to You for Your healing hand on "Chuck Miller." Father, with the incoming weather to this area and all across the United States, we ask that You protect us as per Your will. Each person, Lord, would like different kinds of weather. Please, Lord, send each what they need. Lord, please help me as we keep working on the Big Trip but start another subtopic. Lord, please help me with that message and then please help me to get it dispatched. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is going to be cold and with snow and then the weather people say God is going to turn on the fan. Okay, the weather people forget God is in control of the weather, and He controls what I called The Fan. Anyway, a new subtopic. Let me get to it. Sorry I did not get a message out yesterday. Until I got home from going to two doctors (all good reports) I was really tired and I needed to go to bed. After laying down I had a really high heart rate, but with lots of praying throughout the night it came down. PRAISE GOD.
Thursday: January 21, 2016: The Big Trip (Day Thirty)
The Parts Washer
Those of you who know me and my background from many years ago know I loved working at service stations, real service stations. Started at age 14 working for Lehman's Texaco, and my big brother Leonard "Wrench" Lehman, and he was just 18 and yes, had his very own Texaco Station. Well, over the years we had many different kinds of parts washers. Some had cleaner in buckets and you put parts in a basket and set it down in the stuff. Others were bigger so to wash off bigger parts and the parts were many and of every type you could think of. Many parts to make up one car, and all were needed to make that vehicle work. Let us look at the following scripture and then go on.
1 Corinthians 12:12-26 New International Version (NIV)
Unity and Diversity in the Body
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Sometimes as I am thinking about different things I start to laugh. I was thinking, well, today I am going to the foot doctor, so I must be sure my feet are clean and washed so they do not "stink." Before going to the dentist one would want to be sure to brush their teeth, or be like me and soak them in a glass of cleaner. You use Scope or another mouthwash so as to not overpower your dentist with "bad breath." The other day I went to the urologist, so I took a shower and paid special attention (I do not need to tell you what parts needed cleaned, do I?) So I was laughing out loud and Dolores asked me what I was laughing at and I told her about this "spot washing" I was thinking about. I want to look at some of the scripture verses one at a time. I will bring them down.
1st Corinthians 12:12 - Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
All of us, brothers and sisters, whether Jews or Gentiles, and now we can say be we Lutherans, United Methodists, Roman Catholics, or any of the many, many so-called denominations, are all baptized by one Spirit, that would be the Holy Spirit, or as I like to say, the Holy Ghost. Even a "Holy Roller" like me, we are baptized by the Holy Spirit, after and only after we call on Jesus Christ to save us. Once we truly take on Jesus, we are Saved and then Baptized. Oh, and that is the Church of our Lord Jesus. And even the ones who do not attend church who are saved receive that same Spirit. Oh, and it is for all races, all colors, it is all of us who really love Jesus. It even goes on to say be you slave or free. If I told you that Jesus was a slave, would you believe me? Look at my thinking here. He was always working, and He was not paid, and He was even captured and killed. He slaved for us to be free!!! It takes many parts working together for Jesus to get His work done. His work? Yes, you know, spreading that Good News.
1st Corinthians 12:15 - Now if the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
Some people get upset if they cannot do certain things when it comes to working for God. All of us would love to have all the talent when it comes to working for God. I have been blessed to be able to get up and sing, well, make a joyful noise, anyway. And I can speak in front of people. But if someone said to me, could you make me a nativity, I would need to say no. However, I could call on Grant Crockett and he could make one however you want it. Oh, I would love to have the gift of singer-songwriter Neil Enloe, or that high tenor voice of Duane Nicholson or that really great baritone voice like the Reverend Tim Beitzel or the ability to preach and sing bass like big Dave Kyllonen, or the gift of those musicians on-board with Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. But brothers and sisters, I am truly happy with what God has given to me and even happier to have put them to work for Him. Amen. One talent I had for a long time was being able to clean the bathrooms at the churches I attended and I did just that.
1st Corinthians 12:21 - The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
You see again here that others cannot or should not say to a person with one talent we don't need you, yet at many churches people have looked down upon the one who cleans up, compared to others. God uses all of us as equals. Think about that, brothers and sisters. No one is a stand-out in the Body of Christ. Let me ask some of you pastors, if your custodian would get sick, would you say to them, it is okay, I will do your work for you today? Maybe someday we should all try to switch jobs with someone else. Oh, if I was put at the piano, no one would understand it at all, so you see God puts us where He wants us. I could tell you a really long joke about how one body part was made the boss over the rest, but let me just wrap it up this way.
Our Lord Jesus is over all of us, over all of our parts, and when it comes to parts washing, when you give yourself over to Jesus Christ, ALL THE PARTS ARE WASHED. You are clean from the top of your head to the soles of your feet and all those inners, stripped clean of all sin and washed clean!!! Someone just SHOUT AMEN.
Are You Washed in the Blood?
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His Grace this hour?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
Are you washed in the Blood --
In the soul-cleansing Blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin
And be washed in the Blood of the Lamb.
There's a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,
O be washed in the Blood of the Lamb!
Are you washed in the Blood --
In the soul-cleansing Blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
Dear Father in Heaven, please clean us with The Blood of Jesus this day and make us spotless in Your sight. We need this Blood bath now, Lord, for we are but sinners saved by The Blood and Grace of Jesus as He shed it on the Cross. We give all honor and glory to You for this, as I pray in the Name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Now go forth and get yourself a really good bath, in the shower, or the tub, but more so in the Blood of Jesus, and give Him glory for that. When your power goes off, your water might not flow, but The Blood of The Lamb is still flowing strong. Love ya.
Pastor Dan
Hit that chorus again.
Are you washed in the Blood --
In the soul-cleansing Blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
Are you washed in the Blood --
In the soul-cleansing Blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?
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