Salvation Wednesday 3/2/16 The Big Trip (45)

Dear Father in Heaven: I love You and I seek Your forgiveness of sins this day. Please, Lord Jesus, know that I appreciate Your dying on the Cross to save us, all of us who ask to be forgiven of our sins. Please, Lord, accept my thanks as I give You honor for forgiving them and also this day for clearing from my body whatever it was that was making me so sick and so weak. Thanks for being a great healer of both body and soul. Please, Lord, watch over and heal Matthew and also Noah. Please, Lord, help me get back into working for You daily and I pray it is by writing. Thanks for loving me, for loving us. Please help me now with the daily message and then please help me to get it dispatched. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Also, Lord, please help all of us who use this line to remember it is our Salvation Wednesday and that we should be working extra hard to bring the lost in to Jesus to be healed.

Dear brothers and sisters, thanks for praying for us, for praying for me. I don't know what happened this past week, but I got some sort of bug and it did not want to leave. Monday I gave in and went to the doctor's. On the mend now with all honor and glory going to our Lord Jesus Christ. Handing out Bibles is going really well. Yesterday we purchased 12 more. Eight of them the Children's Read-n-Grow Bibles and four Spanish Bibles going to Cuba. Today I am going forward with the message we call the Big Trip. It will wrap up after Easter. As for today, well, I do want to start this part with a question. Is there anything worse than a "sin?"

Salvation Wednesday: March 2, 2016: The Big Trip (Day Forty-five)

Sins!!!

Luke 17:1-10 New International Version (NIV)

Sin, Faith, Duty

17 Jesus said to His disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. 2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 So watch yourselves. "If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying 'I repent,' you must forgive them."
5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
6 He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.
7 "Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat?' 8 Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'"

Brothers and sisters, worse than our sinning would be leading another person into sin.

Although there was an age of nearly four years between my late brother Leonard and myself, we still managed once in awhile to get into trouble together. He would either suggest we did something that we knew we were not allowed to do or I would suggest it. Those things were indeed sins as we were disobeying our parents and one of the ten commandments is to honor our parents. However, it never seemed as bad disobeying them if we were doing it together. It also would mean I could not tell on him. So I was happy to follow after big brother and get into trouble. If we got caught we would both get yelled at or grounded. But the punishment did not seem to hurt as much if we both were serving it at the same time. I know that mamma did not invent this saying, but she used it a lot. I would say something like, "Mamma, Leonard did it." And she would say, "Two wrongs do not make it right." Or, "If your big brother jumped off a bridge, would you follow him?" Well, she was right on that one, for I would never follow him if he jumped off a bridge. No, he would have pushed me off first.

You see, brothers and sisters, we are to repent of our sins, and if we see others going to sin, we are to talk to them about the sin, hopefully before it got carried out, but if not, we should talk to them about it and try and show them why they should not do these things (SINS).

Jesus also tells us in these same scriptures that we need not just repent, but also have faith and it is our duty to forgive others who cause us to sin or who sin against us.

"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Jesus said that!! And brothers and sisters, how many times should we do this? The Bible tells us seven times if he asks that we forgive him, and tells us he will repent, we should forgive him. That is in Luke 17:3/4: So watch yourselves. "If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.

When I look at that scripture, I sure am happy it is there, and I really do pray that we all follow the scriptures and on this one remember as you look at it and read it, look at it as if it is you going back to Jesus to ask for forgiveness of a sin and you promise to repent and again, maybe even on the same day you have done that same thing again. How often will Jesus forgive us, how often will He forgive You and forgive me? As many times as we ask, or, OR, OR as often as you would forgive the one who sinned against you.

This taken from the Lord's Prayer: Forgive me of my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me. Forgive me of my debts as I forgive those who have debts against me. (One more) Forgive me of my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me.

One last thing I want to bring out from this scripture today. You have people working for you and maybe all of you have been working very hard. It is a hot day and you come in at dusk to eat. Are you going to tell those working for you  to get your dinner ready for you? Remember, you are paying them. Or are you going to invite them to your table to eat and all work together getting the food bag on? As for me, I want to cook for them. This is a fact, when we have workers here at the house doing work that will pass over meal time, we feed them. I am telling you that is one thing that is really appreciated. A little food and water goes a long way to your staff, even if they are just temps. Try it, and while doing it is also a good time to talk about Jesus and Salvation and Grace and Mercy that come to us through Jesus and what happened at the Cross. Amen.

Dear Father in Heaven, it is Salvation Wednesday and a day we really want to lead the lost to Jesus and those who are slipping away, lead them back to Jesus, and we cannot do it without Your help. Please help us. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Please go forth now sharing the Love of Jesus and the Good News of the events of the Cross with all your meet and greet in your home or travels. Love ya.

Pastor Dan

At the Cross (Isaac Watts and R.E. Hudson)

Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

At the Cross, at the Cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day!

Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree!

At the Cross, at the Cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day!

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
'Tis all that I can do!

At the Cross, at the Cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day!

At the Cross, at the Cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day!