We Must Grow...

Scripture:

Hebrews 5:12-14

When babies are born they are fed milk.  The best milk is the milk from the mother.  As the baby grows eventually watered down juice is added to the menu.  Eventually babies are introduced to baby food.  First they are introduced to cereals.  Not knowing what to buy at first I would eventually end up calling Nancy when shopping for baby food.  Eventually babies move from the cereals to the food in the jars.  Once again I wouldn't always know what to buy.  After all there are fruits, vegetables, meat, or mixed.  There was stage one, two and three...  No the baby doesn't like meat or doesn't like greens.  They all pretty much loved fruit though.  Truth be told there were some that I thought tasted good.  As the baby continues to grow they move from stage one food to stage two and eventually three.  it seemed thought that ours never really liked stage three.  They would move onto regular food instead.  

Being a Christian is much the same way.  We have to start out small.  We are on the milk and the best milk is that from the Holy Spirit.  As we grow our Christian diet changes and matures.  As we feed upon the word of God we move from basics to deep theological concepts and beliefs.  As children we learn songs like This Little Light Of Mine, or Jesus Loves Me.  We are taught simple bible stories.  As adults our studies go deeper and more involved.  We dig into the concept of the Trinity and what the meanings are behind the beatitudes.  We pour over lines of scripture for better understanding.  We have debates over baptism and revelations.  

We must grow and feed upon the more nurturing foods of the spirit.  We can read books besides the Bible to help us grow and understand God's word.  Lately I have found tremendous help in listening to past sermons from my pastor.  Another way to help grow is surrounding ourselves with fellow Christians.  We can encourage one another and hold each other accountable.  We need to help one another to continue to grow.  We must help infant Christians grow into mature ones...

Prayer:

God our Father in heaven help us to grow from infant Christians to mature ones.  Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that we will get the nourishment we need in order to grow.  Help us to feed others around us...

What do you mean I am sick...

Scripture:
Romans 6:14-23 (NIV)

¹⁴For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. ¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

 ¹⁹I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.

I read an article that talked about benefits to kissing.  Kissing isn't just for swapping spit.  According to the article kissing can help boost the immune system.  When you kiss you spread germs from one person to the next.  Your body will then start making antibodies to kill the new bugs.

Sin in our lives are similar to viruses.  It spreads and grows not only within us but those around us.  Left unchecked sin can spread like a pandemic from one person to the next.  We influence each other in multiple ways.  We have all heard "Oh what can it hurt..." "Just one time wont hurt anything..." the reasoning and excuses can go on and on.  

So how do we build up our immunity?  How can we get the cure?  The solution is simple; our cure is Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.  The forgiveness of our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour is the cure.  The immunity we need is the Holy Spirit.  If we allow ourselves to be filled by the Holy Spirit we will have no room in our lives for sin.  We can spread the cure just as easily as we can spread the disease.  Be a light for Christ and shine long and bright filling all corners.  

Prayer:

            Jesus You are the only cure to the disease we have called sin.  We want to praise you and thank you for all you have done.  We pray that you will help us to say no to temptation and to be a beacon of Christianity for others to see Christ in us.  Give us strength, guidance, and fill us with your hope and love.  We pray for the peace that only You can give…

God Already Knows...

Scripture:
Matthew 6:7-8 NIV Version

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

            When I was a system analyst in a previous job we had monitoring system in place to monitor various pieces of equipment.  We monitored servers, switches, routers and even some desktop computers.  As a part of our monitoring system we kept tabs on all our VPN connections, virtual private networks.  All the fire stations connected back to the main county complex.  When a connection went down we knew it immediately.  Even as we worked on the problem trying to get them up as quickly as possible someone would call.  We would get the report station so in so is down.  Our reply was we know and are working on it, we will call when we are done.

            God already knows when we are having problems.  We call him in our prayers and there are times when his response is, I know and I am working on it for you.  We might not always see God working in advance but he does.  Sometime ago I was going to be audited by the IRS.  A year prior to the audit God was already working.  A friend of mine new someone that needed their computers worked on.  That person represented me during the audit.  God already knew that a need would be there.  So He prepared the way even though I didn’t know it.

            How many times in our lives has God laid the ground work to help us in our times of need?  How often can you look back only to see God’s hands had already been at work in your life?  As Mary Stevenson wrote in her poem Foot Prints In The Sand “The Lord replied, ‘The times when you have seen only one set of foot prints, is when I carried you.’”  Not only does God already know our needs before we do in the worse of times He picks us up and carries us.  God holds us tightly in His arms to keep us safe.  All we have to do is ask and allow him to work in our lives.

Prayer:
            God our Father in heaven, we pray to you for help in our times of need.  We ask that you take our worries.  Help us not to take our worries back.  Help us to grow in faith and trust You.  Thank you God for being there when we need you…

Walk By Faith Not By Sight...

Scripture:
2 Corinthians 5:6-7 (English Standard Version)

⁶So we are always of good courage. We know that^(A) while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, ⁷for^(B) we walk by faith, not^(C) by sight.

Some time ago I did a children’s message using a pair of dark sunglasses and a pair of prescription glasses.  The gist of it is that when we walk by site it is as if we put on the sun glasses and with the lights turned down low walk around inside the church.  Obviously if we did we would not be able to see very well.  Most likely we would stumble and trip often.  However, when we walk by faith we remove the sun glasses put on our prescription glasses and turn up the lights.  Now we can see where we are going and will less likely stumble or trip.

In my life I have found that everything turns out better when I allow God to take control, when I walk by faith.  When I attempt to control my life myself I find I make a huge mess of things, it is then that I walk by site.   It can be hard at times to truly and completely rely on God trusting in him.  As I look back on the events and mistakes of my life I know for certain that God is true to His Word and that He is always with us.  Just one example is the issue I had from a small business I once had few years back.  My wife and I almost lost everything we had.  It was God that saw us through.  It was God that allowed us to keep our house.  He is the one that provided the job I got.  When we allowed him to work in our lives and we made Him Lord of all that we managed to pull through. 

Walking by faith is not necessarily easy.  It can seem like we are wearing blinders and we stumble.  The truth is that Satan is there attacking.  He will do everything in his power to make us stumble.  It is his goal that we remove our blinders of faith, or prescription glasses.  His goal is to keep us from God.

Prayer:
          God I pray for your Blessings not only for today but for everyday.  May You shine down upon me and fill me with You love, Presence and Holy Spirit.  Lord I pray that you will help me remove my sunglasses and put on my prescription glasses of faith.  Help me to walk by faith and not by sight.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will be will me and fill me.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will keep Satan away and block his attacks on my life.