Tuesday 2/2/16 The Big Trip (34)

Dear Father in Heaven: I love You. Please forgive me of my sins this day and teach me to serve You and also to serve others. When reading Your Word I am once again humbled as to how You served even me by going to the Cross to have my sins washed away. Please, Lord, help me to serve You better by being obedient to You. Help me to try my very best to repent and follow Your commands each and everyday of my life. Please help me now with the daily message and then please help me to get it dispatched. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, today once again like every February 2nd, you find people bowing down to the "groundhog." I think sometimes Americans will go to any length to have a drinking party and shoot fireworks into the air. What I saw this morning was a bunch of men, holding up "dinner!" Think about that, brothers and sisters, if you had nothing to eat, would you eat groundhog? By the way, here is a tip for those of you who might have a groundhog or two in your garden in the spring. If you have cats, empty the dirty litter down the groundhog hole. I will say this, often in the fall we watch those weather forecasters sit under an old apple tree in our yard and eat applies and enjoy watching another of God's critters.

Anyway, brothers and sisters, I do want to get to the message and I want to talk to you a tad today about serving others, and of course more than that, talk to you about serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tuesday: February 2, 2016: The Big Trip (Day Thirty-Four)

Service!!

Mark 10:45 - "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." (NIV)

Over the years many, many of the "rich people" have had servants or slaves. While some servants like personal butlers or personal maids might have made good money, the slaves did not and sometimes were even bought and sold. Looking back, I often had jobs that served others, and I must say the job I loved a lot all through my life was serving people at full-service gasoline service stations. I just loved waiting on gas customers at service stations, and cleaning windshields and really giving people what is now a lost art, "Full Service," at those service stations. Starting early in life I wore the Texaco Star, then the Gulf Orange Disc. I also wore Cities Service uniforms, Exxon uniforms, and then back to that Texaco Star. I found out real fast in the service station business that one thing we had to learn also was to "clean the restrooms." How many people who have others work for them would not even clean their own work place if their cleaning folks would not be able to get in?

Today there are many, many jobs that serve others, and some people do them for free, while others get paid for doing the jobs. Let me ask all of you these questions. Have you ever had a job, paid or unpaid, where you served others? Have you ever had a job where people served you? More than likely in life you had both, and if that is a fact, looking back, which ones did you like the best? And which one made you feel the best? The ones I enjoyed the most seem to be the ones that paid the least; however, to me they were and still are the ones that are most rewarding, and yes, those rewards, if not paid here, will be paid in heaven, if you become "Born Again." I do know some people who think that everything should be handed to them and they should not need to lift a finger to help, to help even themselves. This, my dear brothers and sisters, is wrong, and Jesus Himself set the example on this. In our scripture for today it is pointed out very clearly that:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

And our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ even laid down His life to pay off what most of us are a slave to. SIN!!! Brothers and sisters, we can serve others in many ways. I might have served people at the gas pumps over the years, thousands and thousands of them, however, if I do not serve this one Man, this Man called Jesus Christ, all that service I did for others will all be for "NOT" and I will not get to heaven at all. Let me say that again, we must serve Him above all others to get into Heaven. We must bow down to Him and Him alone and we must have a personal relationship with Him so that He will forgive us and He will provide that step into heaven. This, my dear brothers and sisters, must become a labor of love for us. Don't get all caught up in being served or even serving others until you first serve Jesus. THEN after you have your meeting with Jesus and invite Him into your arms and confess and tell Him you love Him, then go out and serve others and then always do it in Jesus' Name. And please make it a "Labor of Love!"

Dear Father in Heaven. I want to serve You, and I want to serve Jesus, and I want to serve the Holy Ghost and obey all the commands. Forgive me when I fail and wash me clean again. After that help me serve others as Jesus would serve. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, go forth now serving Jesus, not because you have to but because you love Him. And we can go out singing this song. Love ya.

Pastor Dan

I Will Serve Thee (William J. and Gloria Gaither)

I will serve Thee because I love Thee;
You have given life to me.
I was nothing before You found me;
You have given life to me.
Heartaches, broken pieces;
Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary.
Your touch was what I longed for;
You have given life to me.

I will serve Thee because I love Thee;
You have given life to me.
I was nothing before You found me;
You have given life to me.
Heartaches, broken pieces;
Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary.
Your touch was what I longed for;
You have given life to me.