Good day everyone. Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good yes He is good and worthy of our praise. I’m going to give everyone, including myself a little reminder of what our spiritual job description consists of. It’s a wake up call. Let it bless you.

Today’s Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, I come before you this morning standing in the gap for my brothers and sisters in Christ to ask that You forgive us for passing hurriedly over “forgive us our sins,” while cheerfully thinking, “I have not committed murder, or stolen, or cheated on my income tax, etc.” Remind us that for a “growing Christian”, worry, doubt, fear, ill temper, despondency, impatience, selfishness, insensitivity, and lack of love are “sins,” in that they separate us from You. Help us turn to You in order to receive the insight and strength that we need to walk as Jesus walked. Help us call upon the name of Jesus that we may be saved from our sins. It’s in His wonderful name we present this and all things, Amen and Amen.

Let’s eat.

The Lost

The lost; blinded by Satan

2 Corinthians 4:1-3

Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.

The lost; sought by Christ

Luke 19:1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

The lost; found by Christ

Luke 15:1-7

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

The lost; damned in hell

John 17:9-12

“My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.

Quote of the Day

You have trusted Him in a few things, and He has not failed you. Trust Him now for everything, and see if He does not do for you exceeding abundantly above all that you could ever have asked or thought, not according to your power or capacity, but according to His own mighty power, that will work in you all the good pleasure of His most blessed will. You find no difficulty in trusting the Lord with the management of the universe and all the outward creation, and can your case be any more complex or difficult than these, that you need to be anxious or troubled about His management of it?

Hannah Whitall Smith

WITH HOPE AND FAITH

REV. ELDER G E STERRETT

FOUNDER

GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION – THE RELATIONSHIP FACTORY