I am sorry the verses are delayed. I was dealing with some issues yesterday.
Proverbs 19:17 -- "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed."
I John 3:17-18 -- "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth."
This is the week of the the Thanksgiving Day holiday here in the US where I live. I want to wish everyone a good holiday, and I would like to thank everyone for reading this blog. I hope that you are all doing very well.
Last week, we finished our series on the names and titles of Jesus. This week, I want to focus on the theme of thanksgiving in keeping with the holiday here in my country.
The Bible has a lot to say about being thankful. I Chronicles 16:34 tells us to "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His steadfast love lasts forever." In I Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul tells us to give thanks in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in. There are a number of other verses in the Bible that tell us to be thankful and to give thanks to God for all that He has done.
As believers in Jesus, we certainly have a lot to be thankful for. We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We know that Jesus has forgiven us of our sins, and He is with us always. He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us. Those who are in Christ can be thankful for the fact that when we die, we will go to be with Jesus in the place that He has prepared for those who love Him.
There are many general things of life that we should always thank the Lord for. We should always give thanks to the Lord for our food, clothes, jobs, homes and the other important things in life. There are many people who don't have enough, and we need to thank God for those things that we have. In addition, if we have what we need and are truly thankful, then we need to give and help others so that they have what they need to get by in life.
God has truly blessed. We have a beautiful world that God has made. Many of us have loving relationships with others that God has provided for us. It is important to always give thanks to the Lord for His abundant blessings.
One of the things that I am especially thankful for this year is the fact that I live in a place that is not beset with war. I can't even imagine what some of the people in this world are going through at this time.
God has blessed me over the years, and I am thankful to Him. He gave me great parents. The Lord gave me my best friend Toby. I have a good brother. Recently, the Lord provided a solution to some of the financial problems I'd been dealing with.
Whether you live in the US and are thinking about the holiday or not, think about all of the blessings that God has provided to you, and give Him thanks. In addition, make sure to always say thank you to the Lord for His answers to prayer. Give thanks to the Lord. Amen.
Prayer Requests
I have been feeling some better, and I am thankful to the Lord. Please keep praying for my health please.
Pray for an end to the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Pray for the hostages to be free.
Continue to pray for peace in the other troubled areas of the world. Pray for peace in Ukraine, Syria, Myanmar and everywhere else where there is war and strife.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those living in the nations of Guinea-Bissau and the United Arab Emirates. Pray that many will come to know Jesus.
Next week, we will begin a series of messages for the Advent Season. I will post the verses on Monday. May God bless you all.
I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving Day. If you don't live in here in the US where we are celebrating, I wish you a great day filled with God's blessings.
I want to say thank you to the Lord for salvation and forgiveness of sins. I want to thank Him for being with me throughout the year. I thank the Lord for my family and friends and for helping me with my finances. I thank the Lord for my best friend Toby. Thanks be to God for every blessing.
I Chronicles 16:34 -- "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever."
Colossians 4:2 -- "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."
Over the course of the last few months, we've been studying some of the names and titles of Jesus that we find in both the Old and the New Testaments. With our message today, we are wrapping up this series. I want to thank everyone for reading the sermons each week. I also want to thank the Lord for the privilege of sharing the sermon each week.
All of the names and titles of Jesus that we've studied have important implications for us. These names and titles give us insight into the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ. The names and titles of Jesus allow us to understand more of what He has done for us in the past and present, and what He will provide for those who love Him into eternity.
Something we need to consider as we close this series of messages is who is Jesus to you? Jesus asked His disciples in Matthew 16 who people said that He was. Some thought Jesus was a great prophet or one of the great prophets of old come back to life. Jesus moved the conversation along. He asked them who they said that He was. Peter responded by saying that Jesus was the the Christ and the Son of the Living God.
Everyone of us has to answer who Jesus is for ourselves. We have to make it personal. You can know all of the information about who Jesus is according to the Bible, but it only counts for time and eternity when you make Jesus your personal Savior and Lord.
I hope that everyone reading this blog has come to know Jesus as Savior personally. I hope that you have made Him the Lord of your life and that you are allowing Jesus to lead and guide you in every aspect of your life. I hope that Jesus is your peace and that you are allowing the Good Shepherd to lead you down the paths that He wants you to go. I hope that you have a deep relationship with Jesus and that the names and titles that we've discussed in this series are a reality in your relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Maybe you've read some of the messages in this series about Jesus and you have not made Jesus the Savior and Lord of your life. You can do so today. You can always come to Jesus in repentance and faith. Jesus has told us that He would not cast out anyone who comes to Him.
I've really enjoyed sharing this series of messages with you. Jesus is my Lord, and I love telling others about who He is and what He has done. Amen.
Prayer Requests
I want to thank the Lord for providing me with some much needed help. I've mentioned on here before that I needed some assistance financially. The Lord has provided, and I am doing much better in that regard. My health has not been that bad lately either.
Please pray about what is going on over in Israel. Pray that peace can come. Pray for the release of the hostages. It is a terrible situation all around. Violence needs to end.
Continue to pray for peace in the other troubled areas of the world. Ukraine and Sudan both really need our prayers for peace right now.
All around the world, there has been an increase in antisemitism and anti Islamic feelings. There is no place for this. Pray and work for an end to all forms of hatred.
Pray for the people of Acapulco recovering from the hurricane.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of Chad and Morocco. Pray that many will come to know Jesus.
Next week, I will have a sermon about thankfulness as it is the time of the Thanksgiving holiday here in my country. After that, we will take time to have sermons for the Advent season. On Monday, I will post the verses. May God bless you all.
Romans 8:18 -- "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."
Matthew 5:4 -- "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Counting today's message, there are only two more messages in our names and titles of Jesus series. I thank you for taking the time to read the messages, and I thank the Lord for the opportunity He has given me to post the messages.
Today, we will focus on the fact that Jesus refers to Himself in the book of Revelation as the Alpha and the Omega. We read this three different times in Revelation with one of the occurrences being in Revelation 22:13 that reads, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." What does this mean?
In the Greek language, alpha is the first letter of the alphabet. Omega is the last letter of the alphabet. Jesus is saying that He is the beginning and the end of all things. What does it mean that He is the beginning of all things? First of all, it means that Jesus as the diving Second Person of the Holy Trinity has existed throughout all of eternity. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as the Word. It tells us that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
Jesus is also the beginning of all things in the sense that He is the creator as we saw in the message a couple of weeks ago. Everything that is was created by Him, for Him and through Him. All that exists came into being and is sustained because of Him.
We also view Jesus as the beginning of all things spiritually. He is the one that provides redemption for us. He is the one that has the ability to bring us from death to life.
Now, what does it mean that Jesus is the Omega, or the Last, or End? First of all, it also means that Jesus is eternal and divine. He will not have an ending point. Jesus will exist on into the future into eternity forever and forever. He is beyond time.
Jesus is also the one that will bring this current age to its consummation. He will return and rule and reign on this earth. After that period, the Bible says that this earth will end, and the Lord will create a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus will bring this earth to its consummation, and institute a new one.
We as believers in Jesus can take great comfort in the fact that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. He is not going anywhere. He will always be with us. He will always take care of us. He will always be there to make sure throughout all of eternity that all is well for those who have placed there faith and trust in Him. Everything that is good, and right and holy, is forever contained in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus came into this world in order to take away our sins. He has provided all with the opportunity to have eternal life with Him forever. Trust in the saving love of Jesus today. Amen.
Prayer Requests
Please keep praying in regard to my health. I have had some of the worst pain in my life this last week.
Pray for an end to the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Pray for peace, and pray for the release of the hostages.
Continue to pray for peace in Ukraine and Sudan.
Pray for those trying to recover from the terrible storms in Acapulco and parts of Europe.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those living in the nations of Azerbaijan and India. Pray that many will come to know Jesus.
Next week, we will have the final sermon in our current series. I will post the verses on Monday. May God bless you all.
Philippians 4:6-7 -- "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Psalm 23:4 -- "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
Over the past several weeks, we've been engaged in a study of the names and titles of Jesus found throughout the Bible. This week, and for the next couple of weeks, we will be studying this same theme. Then, it will be time for messages based on the theme of Advent. After a sermon for the new year, I plan to begin another series of messages. I have quite a bit already planned for next year. Lord willing, we will have a couple of different series, and I will post the last part of the book about the Minor Prophets.
Today, I want us to focus our attention on the fact that the Bible refers to Jesus as the Author and Finisher of our faith. We read this in Hebrews 12:2 that states, "looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
What does it mean that Jesus is the Author of our faith in this context? Jesus is the one who made it possible that we can be redeemed. As our text for the day lets us know, Jesus died on the cross in order to save us from our sins. Without the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross, we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins as Paul tells us. It is only through Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life that we can have forgiveness of sins.
In addition to this, we need to understand that Jesus is the Author of our faith in that we could not even have the faith to believe in the Lord but by His grace. Some people have the idea that we hear about the message of salvation and then we have enough faith to come to Jesus. However, this is not the teaching of the Bible. We are given the gift of faith in order to believe. When we hear the message of the cross, by God's grace, we are given the faith in order to be allowed to believe in what Jesus has done for us. In this way, Jesus is all and all. We can do nothing apart from Him in order to save ourselves. We are not redeemed by anything that we do. We are what we are only because of what Jesus has done for us. By grace we are saved.
Now, what does it mean when we say that Jesus is the Finisher of our faith? It means that Jesus is the one who will bring us to ultimate redemption with Him in eternity. He will complete the work bringing us to be with Him for all eternity in the place that He has prepared for those who love Him. Philippians 1:6 tells us, "And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
When we are in Christ, we don't have to worry that He will abandon us. He will see us through. Right now, the Lord is in the process of molding and making us what we need to be. We are becoming more and more like Jesus each and every day. Jesus will be with us through the high and through the lows of life until the day that we behold Him face to face in all of His glory.
Jesus has completed the work of salvation. We can have complete confidence and faith in Him. It is my hope and prayer that if you do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord, that you will respond to Him this day. Amen.
Prayer Requests
I really need your prayers this week. I have a lot of important decisions to make. Also, I have had another health set back.
Let us pray for peace in Israel. Pray that the hostages will be free. Pray that the entire area will have peace, and pray that there will be a comprehensive peace solution for this area.
Continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other places in the world experience conflict.
Pray that those suffering as a result of the storm in Acapulco will get the aid that they need. Pray for all of those suffering as a result of natural disasters. I know that Europe is having a bad storm as I am writing this.
For our prayer focus countries this week, let's be in prayer for those in the nations Iraq and Mauritania. Pray that many will come to know Jesus.
Next week, we will continue with our current series. I have two more to go in this series. I will post the verses on Monday. I may have a review midweek. May God bless you all.
