This week’s scriptures are: Acts 11:1-18, Psalms 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
Please pray with me:
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that the words of this sermon are YOUR words, and not mine. I pray that the message here touches those that need to be touched. I pray that those receiving this sermon remember that all Honor and Glory are yours, Lord, both now and forever. Amen and Amen.
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Some people are blind to the things right in front of them. Some people need to have things spelled out for them, before they'll believe what they are seeing.
I have a plan. My plan is to finish out my working days, at my current job, with as few problems and conflicts as possible. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But what if GOD has other plans? What if God has plans for me to be in a place of conflicts? Maybe He wants me to change jobs?
Maybe my writing these sermons is just the beginning of what God has in mind for me? Maybe He wants me to start being more active in sharing His word with others. Whatever that means. Where ever that leads.
Well, then, who am I to stand in the way of God's will?
Years ago I had opportunities that I turned down. I had a chance to take jobs and to go places, but I didn't do those things. It did not matter to me what that "little voice in my head" was saying to me at the time. I was NOT going to do it.
What would my life be like today, had I listened? Whose life would have turned out differently, had I listened?
How would you like to be the man (or woman) who had a chance to do something to help someone and didn't do it. And then later found out what difference you would have made.
Let me tell you a story I heard a long time ago. It changed the way I respond to that "little voice", that I believe is God talking to me. The story goes like this:
One night a man was driving home. It's dark and raining. Not a light drizzle, but a hard, driving rain. He sees a man walking down the street. He doesn't have an umbrella, so he's hunched against the driving rain.
The man driving hears a voice tell him to stop and offer the other man a ride. Being an arrogant man, he argues with that voice. He tells it that he doesn't want to stop and get wet and he doesn't want some wet stranger messing up his car.
The voice tells him again to stop and offer a ride. Again, the same arguments and he keeps on driving.
A third time the voice tells him to stop. One last time the man argues that he doesn't want to mess up his car and he doesn't want to get wet.
So he drove past the man and goes home.
After the man gets home, he goes and changes his clothes, gets comfortable and starts watching the evening news. There's a breaking news report about a pedestrian who was hit and killed as he walked to the store.
The first man starts to pay attention a little more closely, when he realizes that was the man he was told to stop and offer a ride to.
EVEN IF that man had not accepted the ride, he would not have gotten to the corner at the same time and he might have not been killed that night. Had the man driving the car only stopped to offer a ride, what difference might he have made in the other man's life?
In today's lesson we read about Peter going to the Gentiles and preaching to them. What a difference in their eternal life he made! Imagine if he had ignored that voice and gone another way? Would those Gentiles ever have heard the word of God? Would they ever have been saved from eternal damnation?
God's plan is a good plan. Who are we to stand in the way of God's plan? Who are we to say "no"?
I had no intention of writing these sermons, but God did. It was God's plan for me to do this. Are you hearing that little voice tell you to do something? Then DO IT! Don't stand in the way. It's God's plan.
Amen. Amen.
May the reading of this sermon bless you. May God be with you and you with Him, until we meet again.
Amen. Amen
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