Verses For The Week

 I Corinthians 13:13 -- "And now these three remain; faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Psalm 119:114 -- "You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word."

A Word On Sunday

 I am posting today because I feel as if I really need to communicate something. One of the reasons that I began this blog almost a decade ago is that I wanted to tell people that Jesus loves and cares about them. 

There are still many people in this world who don't realize that Jesus loved the world so much that He was willing to leave Heaven and come to this Earth in human form. He showed us how to live by living a life without sin. He was the Lamb of God who bore our sins in His body on the cross. Love kept Him on the cross even as people mocked and ridiculed Him. He died because of His great love for us. He wanted us to be free from sin, death, hell and the grave.

Jesus loves everyone, and He invites everyone to come to Him and receive new life.

I don't know all those who read the blog. I hope that you have accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. If you have not, put your trust in the loving Lord Jesus today.

If you have come to know Jesus through reading the blog over the years, I hope that you will post a comment. I don't always see the comments due to some glitch in the blog, but please try if you can. May God bless you.

Weekend Sermon -- Christian Characteristics -- Love

 Welcome to the sermon. I hope that everyone had a happy Thanksgiving Day. I am thankful for this blog.

This week, we will continue our series on the characteristics that should be present in the life of a Christian who is growing in the Lord. The characteristic that we will explore more about is love.

Love is what God is all about. In fact, I John 4:8 tells us that God is love. God loves all that He has created. He loved the world so much that He sent His Son the Lord Jesus into this world to provide the way to forgiveness of sins and eternal life in the Father's house.

Jesus is our example of what it means to live a life of love just as He is our example in all of our existence. Jesus' love led Him to stay on the cross in spite of the pain and shame. He suffered for us because of His great love for us. Jesus even loved and forgave His persecutors by asking the Father to forgive them. 

In order to imitate and obey Jesus, love must be a characteristic of our lives. Jesus gave the commandment that we are to love one another. 

The Bible tells us that we are to love our brothers and sisters in the faith. Jesus also told us that we are to love our enemies as well. 

One thing that is true of God's love is that it seeks what is best for the other. As followers of the Lord, we must seek to do that which is best for those whom we know. One of the most loving things that we can ever do for another person is to share with them the truth about Jesus and His love and forgiveness.

One of the great chapters in the Bible that tells us what love is all about is I Corinthians 13. This chapter tells us that love is kind. It leads us to be patient people who forgive others. It leads us help others to reach their full potential. When we love, we work for the good of this world. We work to help people in the hard times of their lives.

Love is what Jesus is all about. He gave His life out of love. He is not willing that any should perish. Jesus invites everyone to come unto Him, and that includes you. If you have never accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord, I hope that you will do that today. Experiencing the love of Jesus will lead you to love others. Amen.

Prayer Requests

Please continue to pray for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. Pray that the sick will quickly recover.

Pray for those recovering from storm damage in Central America, and in other parts of the world.

Peace is needed around the world. Pray for peace in Ethiopia, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

Our prayer focus countries this week are Bangladesh and Benin.

Next week, we will continue with our current sermon series. I will post the verses on Monday and a review on Wednesday. May God bless you all.

Happy Thanksgiving and a Review

 Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, so I would like to wish all of my readers in the United States a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a great day.

I have a different kind of book review today. The book for this week is "Who Killed The Fonz?" by James Boice. I am a big fan of the American TV  show Happy Days, so when I saw this book at the library, I knew I had to read it. 

This book is set 20 years after the end of the TV program. Richie is a screenwriter in Hollywood who is currently down on his luck. He gets word that his old friend Fonzie has died in a motorcycle crash. Richie goes back to Milwaukee for the funeral and discovers that Fonzie's death wasn't an accident at all. Along with his old friends Ralph and Potsie, Richie attempts to find out who killed the Fonz.

If you are a fan of Happy Days, you will enjoy reading this story about what the author imagines happened to the characters down through the years. This isn't the outcome I imagined for the characters, but it is interesting nonetheless. 

Verses For The Week

 Psalm 100:4 -- "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him, and praise His name."

I Corinthians 15:57 -- "But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Weekend Sermon -- Christian Characteristics -- Thankfulness

 This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Today, we will continue our current series of messages dealing with Christian characteristics. Today, we will talk about thankfulness, and that works out well since the Thanksgiving holiday is this week in the US.

The Bible tells us that God's people are to be a thankful people. I Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to give thanks in all things. Psalm 107:1 says, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good." Thankfulness should be in our hearts since we serve a God who is good, kind and wonderful.

As I've mentioned here on the blog many times, we always need to look to Jesus, because He is our example in all things. Jesus gave thanks. One place we see this is during the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Before Jesus distributed the bread and the fish, He gave thanks for the food that they were all about to eat.

It is easy for a Christian to be thankful, because we have so much to be thankful for. II Corinthians 9:15 says, "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift." That gift is the Lord Jesus. Jesus died for us so that we could have forgiveness of sins and atonement with the Father. We can have a relationship with the ruler of the universe, and that is an awesome thing to be thankful for.

James 1:17 let's us know that every good and perfect gift comes from above. Everything we have in this life that is good comes from God. He has given us our food, clothes and treasured relationships. I know that I have much to be thankful for. The Lord wants us to tell Him that we are thankful for all that He has done for us. Amen.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for an end to the coronavirus pandemic.

Please pray that the storms predicted for my area will not produce too much rain. Also, please pray that I can quickly find a new part-time job.

Central America has experienced some bad storms recently. Pray that the people will receive the aid that they need.

Continue to pray for peace in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Libya and Afghanistan.

For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for Bosnia and Maldives.

Next week, we will continue our sermon series. I will post the verses on Monday and a review on Wednesday. May God bless you all.

Good Wildlife Conservation Books

 Alan Rabinowitz was an expert on big cats with a special expertise in Jaguar conservation. He worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society for many years before leading Panthera which is an organization committed to big cat conservation around the world.

Mr. Rabinowitz wrote several very good books. Three that I would like to recommend are "Chasing the Dragon's Tail", "Beyond the Last Village", and "An Indomitable Beast." All three of these are very well done and informative. They give a lot of good information about wildlife conservation and saving big cats like tigers and jaguars.

Verses For The Week

 Matthew 5:3 -- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 7:18 -- "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit."

Weekend Sermon -- Christian Characteristics -- Good Works

 Welcome to the Weekend Sermon. Thank you for reading the sermon this week, and I thank the Lord for this opportunity.

Over the course of the last few messages, we've been examining some of the characteristics that should be part of the growing Christian's life.

Today, we look at good works. Before we get too deep into the message, I want to clearly state that no one is offered salvation and forgiveness by the Lord based on the performance of good deeds. Ephesians chapter 2 makes it clear that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works. This same chapter also tells us that we are saved unto good works.

James tells us something similar in his epistle. He tells us that, "faith without works is dead." What James is trying to tell us is that a person who has a true possession of faith and not an empty profession of faith will be living a life filled with doing good in the world for the honor and glory of the Lord. 

We always need to look at what Jesus has to say on a subject. In Matthew 5:16 Jesus says, "Let your light shine before men so that they see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven." In other words, Jesus is telling us that when we do good deeds in the world, they help point others toward the God who we worship. 

This is exactly what Jesus did while He was ministering here on Earth. Acts 10:38 tells us that Jesus went around doing good and freeing those who were opressed by the devil. 

So, what kind of good works should we be doing? Jesus tells us this in Matthew 25. He tells us to do good to those who are the least among us. That means feeding the hungry, providing clothing, visiting sick people and those who are in prison. 

There are many ways that we can do good in this world. There are many hurting people who need us to care about them. This planet and its creatures need someone to care and help. The world needs the help of Christians who will seek the path of peace with justice. 

Another way that we can do good in the world is to tell others about the love of Jesus. This will make a radical difference in the lives of those who turn their lives over to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

This week, let each of us find some way to do what is right and good in this world in the name of Jesus and for His glory. Amen

Prayer Requests

Things have been better at my job this week, and I would like to thank the Lord for this.

Please keep praying for the end to the coronavirus pandemic. Pray that those who are sick will recover.

Pray for those who need aid following storm damage in Central America, the US, and the Philippines.

Pray for peace in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for Laos and Mali.

Next week, we will continue with our series on Friday. I will post a review on Wednesday and the verses on Monday. May God bless you all.

Poem

 The poem this week was written by me and published in the Summer 2000 edition of Writer's Exchange 

Gondolas floating

on calm Venetian canals-

Pigeons passing over.

Verses For The Week

 Luke 19:10 -- "For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which is lost."

I John 5:3 -- "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome."

Weekend Sermon -- Christian Characteristics -- Humility

 Thank you for reading the sermon this week. I thank the Lord that I can post it.

We have been studying what characteristics are to be evident in the life of a believer who is growing in the Lord. So far, we've discussed the characteristics of kindness and joy. Today, we will focus on humility.

Humility is the opposite of pride. According to many Scriptures, pride leads to a fall. James 4:6 tells us that "God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble." Pride caused the devil to rebel against God and to be cast out of heaven.  

First of all, we need to know that the Lord calls us to be humble. Micah 6:8 tells us that we are to walk humbly with our God." I Peter 5:6 tells us to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God.

Humility involves us having the right attitude about ourselves. This is illustrated in Jesus' parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee took pride in his good works. The tax collector realized that he was a sinner who needed the mercy of the Lord. 

When we are humble, we don't go around telling everyone how great we are. We realize that we rely on the Lord for all we are and for all we have. 

If you really want to know what humility in action looks like, look to Jesus. Jesus said that He was humble in heart, and His actions demonstrated that. For one thing, Jesus demonstrated His humility when He left the glory of Heaven and took upon Himself the form of a servant. You can learn more about this by reading Philippians chapter 2. Jesus became obedient unto death even death on a cross.  

While on Earth, Jesus demonstrated His humility during the Last Supper in the Upper Room. As the teacher and Rabbi, the disciples should have washed His feet, but Jesus washed His disciples feet showing them that to be great in God's kingdom means being the servant of all.

When we act like Jesus in this world, we serve and help others. We put the needs of others above our own needs. We realize that without Him, we can do nothing. Let each of us set aside boasting and imitate the humble heart of Jesus. Amen.

Prayer Requests And Other Matters.

The number of coronavirus cases is greatly increasing. Please pray that this pandemic will end. Pray that the sick will recover. 

Pray for those dealing with the storm damage in Central America and the Philippines.

I would ask that you pray that I could find a better job. Also pray that more writing work will come in.

Continue to pray for peace in Syria and Yemen.

For our prayer focus countries this week, let's pray for Albania and Algeria.

Next week, I will post another sermon in our series on Friday, Lord willing. I will post the verses on Monday, and I will post something on Wednesday. May God bless you all. Amen.

Poem

 This poem was published in vol 8 issue 4 of Potpourri.

Sagging and fallen

ravaged by passing of time

the old willow weeps

Verses For The Week

 Mark 1:14-15 -- "After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 'The time has come,' He said, '''the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.'"

Romans 6:8 -- "If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him."