Dear Family of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Praise God you are here today with us!
In John 18 when Jesus is arrested in verse 19 He says, “I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”
This same Jesus would have us look at the eye’s of Baby Eden this morning and listen for His message………
Look at this picture of Baby Eden……….that should make you stop and pray and give thanks. Sharon and I attended her Dedication Saturday night at the Lighthouse Church in Chimayo. We all have prayed for this little angel and she is doing wonderful, born in August at 2 pounds and her intestines outside of her body, she is healed at 4 months and at 10 pounds! PRAISE GOD! Here Baby Eden is with her Daddy.
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The picture here of Rick the Manager of our Local Circle K store getting loved on by Buffy Anne and Reno. Rick just lost his 10 year old Pup and so Buffy and Reno go every Saturday to love on him. These may seem like simple things to you……and they are…..sharing the love of our Lord Jesus Christ is just plain simple!!!
The Lord just keeps confirming to me and Sharon that He has us right where He wants us…….serving people one at a time.
When we did the TV program with Pastor Leonard this past weekend, we spoke to people as individuals as Pastor Leonard talked about Biblical Prophecy leading up to the birth of Jesus.
I share this all with you this day, to challenge us all to look at people as individuals to see the eye’s of Jesus when we look at people.
To slow down and listen as to what Jesus may have you do.
I don;t always write or say the most popular things, I try to talk and write with the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. This past weekend I shared that they say we are on a “fiscal Cliff”…..no we are on a “Moral Cliff”
Chuck Akeley I love it! Moral Cliff! That is the truth… Pastor Moede, you have a way of simply saying what so many of us secretly want to say, or couldn’t put it into words…
Pastor Mark Tross says, Dewey you say what most people want to say, but they don’t have the guts.”
Let’s just say we all need to be more BOLD for our Lord Jesus Christ!
When John Wesley was asked why he was successful as a Pastor, he told the interviewer, “I just meet people where they are lonely and give them the gospel.”
We don’t have to Preach or talk in anger.
This past weekend I asked people to stop and think of the last 2 weekends in the NFL. A KC Chief player kills his girlfriend and then kills himself at the teams headquarters, and the game goes on. This past weekend a Dallas Cowboy player kills his teammate as he was driving drunk and had a wreck in which is teammate was killed, and the game goes on.
We have become numb to senseless death. The games goes on…….no time to just stop and mourn the death here and the tragedies. To learn. This set’s an example to our youth who love the NFL..oh, a player shot and killed his girlfriend and then killed himself and they still played the game, and then this Dallas Cowboy drunk has a wreck in which his teammate is killed. I am sorry but there is a correlation here with what has happened to our Society of greed, money, sex. etc…… we still have to have our football. Do we not see how crazy this cycle is? Where have we put God in this passion we have for NFL and other sports?
We have created a game, whether it’s football, baseball, basketball..of MONEY and DRUGS. Oh this is not going to be a popular post! Sports is a reflection of our society.
As most of you know I in the past have been a HUGE baseball fan…….but that dwindles each year it seems as to what the sport has become. MONEY and DRUGS and TAINTED records.
To me the right thing to do was to call of all games the least two weekends and stop this cycle of madness and pay attention to what is going on here, the destruction of individuals.
The God I know cares about people, individuals, not whether a game get’s played or not. God has been warning us here in the United States about the “MORAL CLIFF” we are on.
But it seems most of us are not paying attention.
Now I want to share with you an article on how precious life is…each life………….Let us today stop and have a CUP of coffee and tea and read this………pray………listen for the Lord to speak to you. The story of Baby Eden is so precious, tell the world! Tell the World how each life is important to God.
LIFE IS PRECIOUS!
Selected Scripture
by
Pastor Stephen Bond
Summit Christian Church
PO Box 50626
Sparks, NV 89435
Introduction
The challenge I face with this morning’s message is overwhelming. On the one hand, we face a gruesome national crisis. Listen friends! In the past twenty-five years our nation has experienced a holocaust greater than what occurred under Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Historians estimate that six million Jews were exterminated by Nazi Germany and twenty million people died under Stalin’s tyranny in the Soviet Union. However, in the past twenty-five years in the United States of America, over 35 million lives have been lost through abortion.
Several years ago a video was produced called “The Silent Scream.” The video recorded an abortion actually taking place and as the tiny baby was being killed, you could clearly see it trying to scream out in pain. Yet there was no sound. No scream. The as yet unborn vocal chords were silenced by the mother’s womb, which rather than being a safe haven to grow and develop, had instead become a tomb, a place of death. And the silent scream continues as over 4,000 voices of unborn children perish daily in this country through abortion.
And the unspeakable tragedy of these silent dying voices is infinitely compounded by the deafening silence of the majority of the Christians who live in this nation. By in large, the believing church in America has been silent, quietly allowing the holocaust to continue while we close our eyes and plug our ears, ignoring the nightmare, hoping it will disappear.
Years ago, Pam and I were in Germany and we visited Dachau, one of the most infamous Nazi death camps. Now a museum, I remember weeping as I walked through the displays showing the emaciated prisoners. Along with the other visitors that day, we whispered as we spoke. It was as if we were somehow linked to the souls of the hundreds of thousands that had died at Dachau. When we arrived at the showers where the Jews were gassed to death and the ovens where their remains were incinerated, we were left speechless. There are no words in the human language to describe the unspeakable horrors that happened in that place.
In a similar way, by in large, the church in America has sat by and done nothing about abortion. Meanwhile, 35 million deaths have taken place. The Bible speaks about sins of commission (things we shouldn’t do) and sins of omission (things we ought to do but don’t). James 4:17 tells us “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” For many of us, and I include myself, our silence on abortion falls into the category of a sin of omission. We’ve known we should have done something, but we’ve stayed silent. And the silence of the majority of American Christians has contributed to the holocaust continuing unabated for twenty-five years. So my first challenge today is to wake us up to the blight of abortion so that we can begin making a difference.
But I have a second challenge. Studies have shown that about 20% of the women who have abortions call themselves “committed believers.” In other words, one out of five women who walk into an abortion clinic on Monday morning, were probably in church the Sunday before. If that’s true, then I realize that I’m probably speaking to a number of people this morning who’ve been affected directly by abortion.
If you’re woman, you may have had an abortion in the past. Or if you’re a man, you may have encouraged someone to have one. Maybe even paid for it. In either case, you may be sitting there now feeling guilty for it and the last thing I want to do is heap more guilt on you. I want to be very clear this morning: the blood of Christ covers all our sin. The Bible declares if we repent and ask forgiveness, God forgives our sin. All sin. Including abortion. No ifs, ands or buts. 100% guaranteed.
So, on the one hand, my first challenge is to wake us up to the huge sin that abortion represents in our land. But on other hand, I don’t want to stir up false guilt in anyone for past sins that have already been forgiven. But there’s one more challenge and this is where I’m most affected. It’s the challenge of doing something about it. After all, if we’re honest, most of us would admit that abortion is just too big of an issue, too huge of a problem, so we opt not to do anything at all because we don’t think our efforts will make any difference. That’s a lie, but we’ve believed it.
And one by one, Satan has convinced us to sit on the sidelines with our hands folded in our laps while 4,000 silent screams happen every day. This can’t continue without God’s judgment eventually coming on our nation. With that in mind, my goal today is that every one of us would take one additional step forward in upholding the value of human life. At the conclusion of this message, I’m going to give several practical steps that we can take which will help make a difference.
Now, let’s review what the Bible says about the issue of life:
1. God creates life and he’s intimately involved in our development. Genesis declares that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them….The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.” No life exists apart from God. He’s the Creator. We can’t take one breath, nor will our heart beat even one beat apart from God’s intervening grace that gives life.
David writes in Psalm 139, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body.” With his infinite skill as the consummate Master Craftsman, the Lord fashioned our bodies, cell by meticulous cell, and formed us in our mother’s womb.
The miracle of a developing child is astounding. A baby’s heart begins to beat 18 to 25 days after conception. Brain waves can be recorded at 40 days. At 11 to 12 weeks, a baby squints, swallows, makes a fist, has fingerprints, kicks and sucks its thumb. Not long ago, a couple from our church had a child born several months premature. It weighed only 1 lb, 7 oz, but it survived and is doing well. God gives life. And life begins at conception long before a baby takes its first breath. Abortion is wrong because it snuffs out a life. Abortion stops a beating heart.
2. All life is precious to God.
Our society today places particular value on people who can contribute. People are valued if they make money and spend it. People are valued if they have no special limitations to slow them or others down. Anyone that falls outside the bounds of what our society defines as “normal” is often looked upon, not as a blessing, but a liability. Because of that, an increasing number of Down Syndrome and other special needs babies are being aborted. Birth defects often lead to additional medical care which can be costly. And our society is increasingly allowing the bottom line to dictate morality. Instead of caring for special needs children, they’re being killed by abortion. It’s easier. It’s more cost effective.
But God’s word declares that all life is precious. Not just those who we call “normal” but all life. Exodus 4:11 declares, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Our God is sovereign. He’s the one who creates all life and all life is precious to him. God knows what he’s doing, even if we can’t completely understand. His plans are always perfect and none of us should ever dare to presume that we know more than God by taking the life of an unborn child.
Consider the following. There’s a preacher and wife who are very poor. They already have fourteen children. Now she finds out she’s pregnant with the fifteenth. They’re living in tremendous poverty. Considering the economic implications of another child, would you recommend the woman get an abortion? If you would, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the church.
Or consider this. The father is sickly, the mother has tuberculosis. They’ve had four children. The first is blind, the second is dead, the third is deaf and the fourth has TB, like his mother. The woman finds out she’s pregnant again. Given the extreme situation, would you consider recommending an abortion? If you would, you would have killed Ludwig von Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time. Or consider this. A white man raped a thirteen-year-old black girl and she got pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending an abortion? If you would, you would have killed Ethel Waters, the black gospel singer who ministered to millions of people around the globe with Billy Graham. All life is precious to God.
Over twenty-six years ago, Jeanne and Greg Krebs from Canton, Ohio sat in a doctor’s office. The doctor told the them, “You’ve had many problems thus far in the pregnancy and there’s a strong likelihood your child will have severe disabilities. As a result, I recommend an abortion.” The couple looked at each other and then Greg responded, “That’s not an option for us, doctor. We’re Christians and believe that God has created all life with a purpose. We’re committed to having this baby.”
Their son Chris was born with cerebral palsy and mental limitations. Greg says, “It hasn’t always been easy. But there’s a mixture of joy and heartbreak in raising any child; joy with the accomplishments, heartbreak with the setbacks….But we believe that God is doing the right thing all the time, even though the timing and circumstances don’t always make sense to us. God has used our son to teach us so much about his Son, Jesus Christ, and his love and faithfulness in our lives.”
Greg described one of many blessing their son Christ has brought into their lives. This experience happened when Chris was seven years old. Greg was picking up his wife from her work at a hospital. She was late getting off so Greg and Chris waited for her in one of the family rooms. Another man in his 60’s was waiting for an appointment. He was very scruffy-looking and smelly. Greg went to the nurse’s station to check how much longer his wife might be and when he returned, Chris was sitting by the older gentleman. The man was sobbing and Greg wondered what Chris had done to offend him. Greg went over to apologize.
He said, “I’m sorry if my son said something unkind to upset you or made you uncomfortable. He really doesn’t mean to be inappropriate.” The man replied, “Unkind? Unkind? Your son is the only person who has hugged me in the last twenty years!”Greg realized that at that moment Chris had a more Christ-like love for that man than he did!
The Bible assures all life is precious to God. No one created in the image of God is less valued by God than anyone else. Every person, special needs or not, is precious in God’s sight. Just because society places a higher value on people without special needs doesn’t mean that God has the same perspective. When God creates a person, he creates that person to accomplish his divine purposes. Keep in mind that God’s purposes may not be the same as our purposes. All life is precious to God.
3. By God’s grace, we can make a difference.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe one of the great lies that we’ve bought into is that the problem of abortion is somehow so large that our efforts won’t make any difference. But that’s just not true. All through history we find individuals, one by one, making a difference.
Think, for example, about Jonah in the Old Testament. He was only one man. Jonah was full of nationalistic pride and, at first he was openly disobedient to the Lord. When God called him to go to Nineveh, he went the opposite direction toward Tarshish. But when he finally got to Nineveh and preached his message, God used Jonah to provoke one of the greatest revivals recorded in Scripture. Overnight, over 120,00 people repented from their sin to such a degree that God stayed his hand of judgment. Jonah was only one man, but his obedience was the tool that God used to bring mercy to 120,000 people!
By God’s grace, we can make a difference. Working with people one by one, each of us playing our part, we can make a difference. Let me share with you a story of the remarkable impact one person can have. It’s the story of Norma McCorvey, who was the infamous Jane Roe in the Roe vs. Wade court case which legalized abortion in our country. Norma was quite a woman. She could outcuss the crassest men; she could out drink most tavern regulars; and she was known for her hot temper. When pro-lifers called her a murderer, she called them worse and spit on them.
Norma worked for an abortion clinic in North Dallas, Texas when the pro-life group Operation Rescue moved into the office right next door. The clinic and Operation Rescue shared a common wall in their offices. At first there was open conflict. The police were called almost hourly. But, over time, because the two groups were so close to each other, Norma began developing a relationship with some of the people from Operation Rescue, especially the daughter of one of the pro-lifers. Seven-year-old Emily was constantly giving Norma hugs and affection.
The little girl was winsome and disarming. One time Norma explained to Emily, “I like kids and wouldn’t let anyone hurt little kids,”to which Emily responded, “Then why do you let them kill babies at the clinic?” Emily’s child-like innocence cut Norma’s heart. Eventually, Norma began to see that abortion wasn’t about extracting blobs of flesh, it was about snuffing out young lives of children like Emily.
One day, Emily said, “Miss Norma, it would be sooo cool if you would come to church with us.” At first Norma said no, but Emily persisted for several weeks until she finally agreed to attend. One sermon was all Norma needed. Pastor Morris Sheats of Hillcrest Bible Church ended his sermon with an evangelistic call. Norma responded on her first day in church by going forward to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Today Norma McCorvey is not the same woman who twenty-five years ago was Jane Roe in Roe vs Wade. Today, Norma speaks around the country supporting pro-life concerns. Today she says, “I’m 100% sold out to Jesus and 100% pro-life. No exceptions. No compromise.”
AMEN!
Thanks to Darlene Fick Quiring for this next Christmas story………..God Bless you Darlene!
SANTA AND SARAH
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I just wanted to share this with you………I posted this on facebook on Friday after the CUP went out……….
I just got done posting the CUP….and this scripture is my Christmas scripture……Jesus said in John 18:36 “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
In the Albuquerque Journal this morning is the USA Weekend insert with this headline on the cover, “THE END OF THE WORLD IS NOT NEAR” The front page continues…Your in luck! from prophetic Maya calendars, to killer asteroids, experts tell w
hy you have nothing to worry about.
WOW! Let us pray……God only knows when HE ends the World….
I talk about the “NOTHING NOISE” of the World in the CUP today, and this edition of USA WEEKEND is more of the same.
In the meantime we are to carry out the Great Commission and be Salt and Light and occupy until our Lord returns!
here is Shari Johnson…………God Bless you Shari!
A New Night on the Job
Luke 2:20 ~ And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
I love the shepherds role in the Christmas story; those who the socialites looked down upon and were considered at best second class citizens, if that high ranking. I tried to imagine what it must have been like when they returned to the field; were their sheep still there? I would say God took care of their flock, or perhaps after seeing heaven filled with the Heavenly hosts the sheep were still standing in their place in shock. One thing I’m pretty sure of was that the shepherds didn’t return unchanged. I know this, because when I found Christ, I didn’t.
When I came to the saving grace of Christ Jesus there were no Heavenly Hosts opening up the skies and singing glory to God, at least not that anyone could see. But they were there, because the scripture says in Luke 15:7 “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” This from the parable of the lost sheep, another shepherd sotry. God obviously has a fondness for them.
He used the shepherd’s role as a training ground for the Leadership.
King David himself rose to fame because of the skills he mastered in the fields as a shepherd. Before he slew the giant Goliath he had killed the fiercest of creatures the lion and had no doubt protected the flock from countless others. The role of shepherd however had somewhat diminished in its respectability factor over the years. But this night they were the chosen few.
Is it any wonder that when they returned they were worshippers?
They glorified God. One of them may have written the first Christmas carol on a harp like David played. They had begun as outcasts but were now in the “in crowd”, being chosen to be among the first to see the extraordinary birth of the Messiah. If they had an occasion to go to town before this night, they likely went in and out with as little notice as possible, but tonight they proudly greeted everyone with the news of the Savior’s birth because they were somebody!
They were wound up!
They were excited! I get that, because when I got saved I couldn’t tell enough people about it. There is something that bubbles up in your soul and spills out to every non believer you come across. You want them to know what you know. And you can tell them with confidence because you have been found worthy! Not by anything you have done, but because God loved you enough to visit you in an extraordinary way and allow you to become a part of the greatest story ever told. Now that story was yours; the one everyone in town was talking about, you were in it.
I would venture a guess that the shepherd’s first night back in the field was spent with their head up and a whole new attitude.
Hold your head high child of God, you are a part of the greatest story ever told!
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