Eat Your Ice Cream Before It Melts

Every year draws closer to the Lord’s return. He has been received in Heaven awaiting the day of all things to completely be fulfilled before He comes again. His plan is on purpose and deliberate. From the creation of the galaxies to this globe, God determined to settle the mystery of iniquity and to defeat all evil and wickedness. One glorious day there will never be the movement of sin.

When all vestige of sin is taken away there will never be the thought of worry, sorrow, and death. It was sin that brought all that is bad, but it was our sin that brought our Savior all the way down from His home which was to set us free from the tyranny of Satan’s works.

Let’s ask ourselves if we have seen anyone come to Christ during this year personally in our walk and talk of Jesus? Do we need revival in our lives? Have we grown accustomed to the culture and the ways of man? Are we asleep in the household of faith? Does what the pastor says shake you to your core through the messages? Do you get mad at the message, or sad, and then glad because you understand. These are real questions we need to answer ourselves. People are not looking for pat answers in their sorrows, they are searching for that which is real and true, they want to see Jesus in you.

God’s people in the beginning of the church age were people of extreme joy, deliberation, discipline, and worship. Though they were persecuted they endured, and they overcame. Our world of America is fast becoming a thing of the past. We can have a booming economy, freedom of religion, and open doors in our churches, but if we do not become a bastion of faith ourselves as individuals then we are only fooling ourselves to believe all is okay.

Let’s ask God to give revival in us. Are we seeing the burning bush of revival in us who is the Holy Spirit. Let’s examine our hearts by His Word and through His Spirit. You see, it takes more than just doing church work! Our church work must begin with Him in the holy sanctuary of our lives. We are the temples of the Holy Spirit. He lives within and indwells us as believers. And the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

If nothing is happening through us that is unexplainable than we need to look up and look within. Only that which is unexplainable can be said it is of God. God’s people are supernaturally natural and naturally supernatural. Think on that for a while . God’s people are saved, separated, sanctified, supernatural, splendid people. They witness without witnessing because it is Christ working through them.
May we have 20/20 vision for the year 2020.

I do love you dearly,
Pastor Don

It is not amazing all the people gave glory to God for the healing of a blind man?  The Lord of love was passing through Jericho and He stopped. He healed the blind and begging  Bartimeaus (Luke 18:43). But what is so amazing about this for God loves to heal? Is this not the reason for His coming to seek and to save?

Yet when it came to Zacchaeus we find a different story. The Lord Jesus sought and spoke to Zacchaeus while he was up in a tree and then invited, of all things, Himself into this “sinner’s home” and the people grumbled (Luke 19:7). Why?

The Son of man came to “seek and to save that which is lost.” Every person is a sinner–bad sinner, good sinner, we are all sinners in the sight of God who are condemned and lost. It is our ministry to go to where all sinners are. And you know there is not a place where sinners are not!

This ought to be the key verse of our life, “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). It is our job to take as many sinners with us to heaven as we travel and pass through this world. May we be found in the sinner’s way!

Adoniran Judson and Ann Judson boarded a ship for India that would eventually lead them to Burma (modern-day Myanmar).  They suffered and endured much on the mission field, yet they were used by God in some extraordinary ways.

A letter was written from Adoniram to Ann’s father asking for permission to marry his daughter.   The following is Adoniram’s candid request:

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.  Can you consent to all of this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God?  Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

Ann’s dad said “yes,” the couple was married, and a year later they set sail.  Ann’s dad would never see his daughter or son-in-law again.  In fact, Ann would lose her life sharing the gospel with people who had never heard the good news of Jesus Christ.

John Piper said, “God’s plan is that his gospel-spreading, church-planting purpose triumph through the suffering of his people.”  Is this out-of-the-ordinary type of commitment or are we too far behind in our passion for Christ and His gospel?

“O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy
servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who delight to fear thy name;
and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the
sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer” (Nehemiah 1:11).

The basis of courage is individual initiative. If we cannot act alone, we
cannot act together.

God has given us the power to lead. Our knowledge and skill developed by God
in us has given his people the ability to lead.

But it is only under the most difficult of circumstances that character and
courage earns us the right to lead.

Nehemiah led, even under great adverse situations to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem.

God has placed the local church in divinely appointed areas. We are located in Burlington near the interstate not far from downtown. While we are a body of believers that gather weekly we are also a church that scatters daily.

There is a scene that we do not see. It is the invisible spiritual world that is playing its game of havoc upon mankind in the physical visible world. When the church is not available in prayer then the invisible world runs amuck upon the visible world.

As the church is on the scene and praying then we know that the invisible spiritual world of God is available to us. When God’s presence is thick and real then sin is defeated and Satan is deposed. Prayer is needed to ask God for His activity.

May we pray and go in the name that is above every name. Prayer gives us wisdom, power, and purity. Prayerlessness is terrible. There is power in congregational prayer and power in the individual prayer. Let’s Pray. We can’t see the wind but we can feel it. So what we see and feel is dependent upon God’s people as we pray.