Thursday 4/14/16 Lost and Found

Dear Father in Heaven: Praise You, Father, for another beautiful day. Thanks for watching over us during the night. Thanks for trusting us to work for You. Please help Sonlife Broadcasting  reach their goal to keep the programs on the air around the world. Please help each of us as we try and work our best for You. Please, Lord, help Dolores and me deal better with our pain levels. Now, Lord, please bless me with a message and also to get that message dispatched. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is a beautiful day. The Son is always shining and today the sun is also shining. Enjoy both of them. Remember that one is always shining. Yesterday I missed, and I hate it when I miss on Salvation Wednesday. However, we had appointments and until we were done, I was also. Too much hanging time with my legs and when I do that they swell up. With that said, let me move on to the message of today, "Lost and Found."

Thursday: April 14, 2016: Lost and Found

Brothers and sisters, how many of you remember going someplace where there is a lost and found box? From when I started into first grade in Harrisburg, PA, back in the days when the Dead Sea was still just sick, I remember having lost and found boxes. Then came my days working with school buses at Central Dauphin School District. Each bus had a lost and found box in them. Kids lost all sorts of things, gloves, mittens, umbrellas, their lunches. Let me tell you right now, better for the bus driver when a child lost their lunch on the way to school than on the way home. If a lost lunch was found on the bus in the morning, we tried to get it back to the school before lunch. If the child lost their lunch on the way home from school, sometimes it went on the driver or another child. Sometimes in life things that get lost get messy.

Luke 15:8 - "Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' 10 In the same way, I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (NIV)

I can remember walking to Sunday School one time about 68 years ago with two dimes, one for Sunday School and one to purchase a fountain drink at the drug store. On the way to Sunday School I dropped one of the dimes and it rolled down a storm sewer. I looked over and thought to myself, God's dime just went down the drain!!!

With that aid, I can't help but think how often things like that still happen. Maybe you even put a tithe back, and before you got to use it for God, something else came up, maybe even an emergency, and you used God's money to fix it. He will understand, you're thinking, or will He?

Let me tell you this, if you give to God first, your money will go further, if you pay bills first there is never any left over for God. But let me get to the real part about this. It is about Salvation and the lost and found related to just that. I was lost, really lost, and now I am found! I don't care how lost you are today or why you are lost. And if you stay lost things really can get messy, as in my statement above.

Jesus came to this earth some two thousand plus years ago and died on The Cross, His Cross, and gave us a way to be found. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE LOST FOR ONE MORE MINUTE. On your way to The Cross, you might slip and fall, you might tumble and roll backwards, but we have a loving Savior who will help you back up. I am example of that!! I know many others who have had major struggles walking toward The Cross or some even after finding Jesus and His Cross.

Even after you are saved, after you have come to Jesus, some days will still be hard. God did not promise us a perfect life here on earth. What He promised us is a Perfect Home with Him if we come to Him. In those lost and found boxes at the end of a year we could not match up a pair of gloves or mittens, but if you did not mind the fact the all looked different, you could make some great sets of gloves. You know with people no two of us are exactly alike, until we come to Jesus, then even though we don't look alike we have this one thing about us the same. We have all been Washed in The Same Blood, that being the Blood of Jesus shed for all of us on The Cross. Once we are saved, we become brothers and sisters, real brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you are like Dolores and me, the greatest gift that we could receive at our age is just knowing that our family and friends truly love Jesus and that they are "Born Again" and if I were to ask all of you this today, do you have that same concern for your family, how would you answer me? Yes, you an let me know as it is always nice to hear from you.

Now go forth serving our Lord Jesus, and if you are lost and you want Him, He will find you. Remember, Jesus is not lost. Love ya.

Pastor Dan

I Will Serve Thee (Bill 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.