What Windows are You Opening to Destroy Your Family and Your Life

Men in Ministry, I have a few questions.

• Do you commit murder in your house?

• Do you have sex in your living room, in front of your children?

• Do you sell drugs in your living room?

• Do you use drugs in your living room?

• Do you practice witchcraft in your home?

• Do you get drunk in your home?

I hope the answer to these questions is no. Well let us examine the answer before we jump to a no.

Protect the Purity of Children
and the Purity of Your Heart

Do any of the shows that on your TVs promote, cussing, alcohol, sex, witchcraft or drugs?

Do any of the shows in your home promote cussing or denial of Jesus as Lord and Saviour?

Are we limited in what we can watch? Men in Ministry we are, the path is narrow, many are called few are chosen.

The other night for no good reason Bill O’Reilly, the proclaimed Catholic, made it a point to show a conversation he had with Don Imus. In the conversation, Bill denied Jesus as Saviour. He called Jesus a liar by his statement. He said he did not think the people in New Guinea would get a hearing of the Gospel. He continued to say if you are good you will go to heaven. He also said there is more than one way to heaven Jesus is not the only way. This denies Jesus and the need for the cross which we know is not true.

What kind of stuff is leaking into your mind and the minds of your children? If a sin is shown as being OK or normal it is wrong!

The other day my daughter asked my granddaughter an innocent question and my granddaughter said “hell no”. Not words that are used in my daughters home. Where did it come from? My daughter and son in law decided from some TV show. The TV watch list was reviewed and revised.

Hot coals in your lap will burn you even coals that are not so hot.

Proverbs 6: 27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? 28 Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?

Open a window to the acceptance of sin and it will destroy you.

Just one look at a photo on the web, a fire starts with a spark.

In the name of Jesus cancel the sin that has been allowed into your home. Cancel, in the Name of Jesus, any generational sin that has been inherited from parents, grand parents go 7 generations back. Cancel, in the Name of Jesus any generational sin that has been passed from you to children, grandchildren to 7 generation forward.

Have your children or your wife seen you daily on your knees praying? Have they seen you every day studying your Bible? Are you the first one to be ready for the church service? Are you in total support of your pastor? Are you unwavering, never making the slightest negative comment about him or her? Have you explained the tithe of money and time to your family. Has your family witnessed your tithe.

Is there compromise anywhere in your life? The Bible tells us that sin will come into the light and be exposed.

Pat Schatzline just spent an amazing three days at Glad Tidings. In the 3 days, he preached all out, 5 times. He said many valuable things, I have 10 pages of notes. One of his statements: “You cannot dance with the devil and serenade the cross.” In other words: Galatians 6:7  “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

We know God is good. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Prayer is Powerful!

Let us love the Lord our God with all our Hearts, obey His commands and do what pleases Him.

Glad Tidings Men in Ministry

Men in Ministry, Trust in the Lord

A few weeks ago we enjoyed a wonderful sermon that tested each one of us. The sermon, tested us, made us a little uncomfortable in our seats and gave each of us a path to follow and a choice to make.

The sermon was titled: Trust can only be trust in the dark.  What does this mean?

Our Senior Pastor was in India with 51 of our church community. They were working with orphans and churches in and around Rajahmundry, India. His wife Pastor Christina was in the pulpit on this Sunday. She does not often take the pulpit there was an expectation in the air for a Holy Spirit filled direct message. That is exactly what we received a direct convicting and encouraging message on Trust.

Men in Ministry, faith creates trust. Without faith,  we cannot trust. I have two lovely grandchildren. They are sisters; Aspen and Colbie. Aspen is 2 years old Colbie is 3 months old. When Aspen stands on the side of the pool and her mother says jump, she hesitates then jumps. Aspen has faith in her mother, from that faith she trusts that jumping into the unknown will be ok.

Mary had blind trust to listen and believe the Angel Gabriel, who appeared to her, told her she would have a child conceived through the Holy Spirit. The complications this caused a young, possibly as young as 14, Jewish girl, who was engaged to be married were considerable. Joseph was her fiance' a fine upstanding man in the community. Mary could have been turned out by Joseph she could have been stoned as an adulteress she could have been sent out of the Temple many things for her to consider. Mary first asks how can this be? I am a virgin. The angel tells her the Holy Spirit will come on her, and the Most High will overshadow her. Mary’s answer: Luke 1:38 “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be as you have said.” Wow!

When Jesus called the Apostles, we are told they immediately left everything and followed Jesus. They trusted Jesus, someone they may have faintly heard about but certainly knew little of Him.

The example Pastor gave, in front of the congregation, was to blind fold an intern then tell her to listen to the her voice and do what she says. The intern went down steps, turned left walked a few steps, turned right walk a few steps, she followed the voice commands perfectly. Trust is following the commands of the Holy Spirit. Trust is following the voice of your Pastor or your ministry leader. The Pastor then turned her head so the intern could not clearly hear her voice. Some of the people in the front row could hear the Pastor’s voice and told the intern what they thought she said. The intern still did not move she did not hear the Pastor’s voice. She did what she was told.

Trust is found in obedience. The intern obeyed and only responded to the Pastor’s voice. We hear from God are given a direction then we do not hear His voice for awhile. Do we then have a tendency to listen to other voices. Did God truly tell you not to eat that fruit or go that way. You have not heard for a while maybe the other voices are correct. Not so: wait on the Lord.

Trust begins when we are in the dark, when we cannot see or do not know what to do. Trust requires that we will leave something behind. Mary gave up everything to follow the Lord’s Will for her, the Apostles gave up their livelihood along with family, friends and everything they knew. The intern sacrificed her natural senses and instincts to trust in the Pastor's.  God will ask us to do what we can do, not what we cannot do. We may not know we can do it. We may doubt that we can do it. God knows what we can do.

Trust is a sacrifice. Every sacrifice has a cost. 2 Samuel 24: 24 But the king replied to Araunah. “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

Take the faith step, trust in God, trust in those that are in authority over you. All authority comes from God.

A final example in which I had the blessing to participate. We are on a mission trip to Nicaragua. We were supporting our Pastor and the missionaries to put on a Pastor’s conference. Each Pastor who attended the conference would receive gifts from us. Included in the gifts was $50.00 cash for each Pastor. The missionary stepped out of the hall he turned toward 5 of us, who were in proximity. He said: "go and get the envelopes for the Pastors." Twenty feet from us there were 100 envelopes in a stack on a table. All five of us turned and went to get the envelopes. When we got to the table, we laughed, realizing it did not take 5 people to carry the envelopes. More important, we realized we had learned to trust the leaders.

Faith begets trust trust begets obedience obedience then makes us all the followers that Jesus intended.

Glad Tidings Men in Ministry

When there is Church, You Go to Church

Men in Ministry, the church is not the building it is the local body of Christ, us!

Men in Ministry, is there a way to run the race to win, without using all the tools that Jesus gives us?  The Holy Spirit, good teaching and preaching, prayer and Bible Study are the key tools that Jesus left for the Christian. The path we are to live is narrow and difficult. The world has so much to offer us in carnal pleasure or simple distractions.

Fellowship

Is it weird to get up on Sunday morning and go to church rather than doing so many other things? Is it even weirder to plan your life around the church services? Going to church on Wednesday, we call it the Oasis, is always hard for friends and co-workers to understand.

Be and Example
 for the Youth

What is the priority? Is your prayer time, are the church services scheduled in to your calendar so that you are aware of the commitment.  What is the first priority? Is it a business meeting or dinner,  is it a sporting event, is it a party or is it obeying God?

There are many excuses to skip church. Seldom are we in such a situation that God would agree is more important than being in a scheduled church service. To be like Christ strive toward the desire of the Lord, which is for us t

Hear Great Preaching/Teaching

o be one like He and the Father are one. John 17 is the public prayer that Jesus prayed for all believers. Jesus says, “I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”  So Jesus as He prepares to go to the brutal death on the cross prays for all believers. Jesus goes on to be very specific. Here, he describes a unified congregation as the desire of His heart. “ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one.”

How can we possibly be one as Jesus and the Father are one, without being together under one earthly God delegated leader, the Pastor? Jesus prays at the very end of His time on earth for us to be one. He knows all things and He knows that we cannot win the race without being unified, seeking, worshiping and encouraging each other in Christ.

Worship Together

The power of Pentecost is in obedience to the direction of the Lord which disciples practiced by being together in prayer and fasting. Jesus in acts told the disciples to wait, do not leave Jerusalem. “When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place.” Acts 2:1: The disciples became unified in that room, in Jerusalem. We know 120 people were together when the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of tongues of fire. He did this to give the disciples the power that Jesus spoke of before He ascended to the right hand of God. The power that Jesus said would be used to do greater things the He did. How many were in the room on the first day, was 300 or 500? On the 10th day the unified 120, the faithful we prayed together under the leadership of the Apostles received the power of the Holy Spirit and changed the world.

Men in Ministry, Schedule all the church services on your calendar to be sure schedule conflicts are avoided

Jesus went to the Temple; the place of meeting it was Jesus’ regular practice to be in these places on the Sabbath. (Reference Luke 4:16) Men in Ministry, we need to be in our local church, when there is church. Be there unified with all of our brothers and sisters, worshiping God, to studying His Word, encouraging each other and being obedient to God’s commands and do what pleases Him.

We are the church!