Good morning everyone and praise the Lord for another day and another chance to grow in the gospel. When I got the word that inspired today’s message I had to really dig deep to understand where I was to go in putting it together. I was quite surprised at the outcome when I was finished. Be blessed by the scripture contained in this message.
TODAY’S PRAYER
Dear Heavenly Father, help us to see that virtue, like bread, is necessary for our nation’s meaningful existence. We need to learn to get along with our fellow citizens. We need to develop sensitivity to each other’s needs and misfortunes. Jesus taught His disciples to be sensitive, to pray for those who are suffering, to speak words of healing and forgiveness. This was learned caring, not left up to government-managed welfare, but to neighborly concern – most often, to Christian concern. This is the basis of virtue! Help us Lord, to learn this for ourselves and to teach it to our children, for fear that we lose our lives on streets that are rampant with crime because of our refusal to heed Your commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and to want for others what we desire for ourselves – the same opportunities, the same encouragement, the same helping hand. In Jesus’ holy name we pray. Amen.
Let’s eat.
FOUR WRITINGS
On Tablets of Stone
Exodus 34:1
Then the LORD told Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones. I will write on them the same words that were on the tablets you smashed. Be ready in the morning to climb up Mount Sinai and present yourself to me on the top of the mountain. No one else may come with you. In fact, no one is to appear anywhere on the mountain. Do not even let the flocks or herds graze near the mountain.”
Law on the Plaster of the Wall
Daniel 5:5
Many years later King Belshazzar gave a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking the wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines. So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. While they drank from them they praised their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, and his face turned pale with fright. His knees knocked together in fear and his legs gave way beneath him.
Judgment on the Cross
Matthew 27:32-37
Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). The soldiers gave him wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened to the cross above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Atonement on the Heart
2 Corinthians 3:1-3
Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.
1. The Sinner tested and found wanting
2. The Sinner judged for sin and transgression
3. The Savior working out Redemption
4. The Believer manifesting the result of Regeneration
Quote of the Day
It costs to be faithful. It cost Abraham the yielding up of his only son. It cost Esther to risk her own life. It cost Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being put into a fiery furnace. It cost Stephen death by stoning. It cost Paul his life. Does it cost you anything to be faithful to your Lord and King?
Anonymous
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REV. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION & THE RELATIONSHIP FACTORY