Happy Saturday!

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday; the birthday of the church. If you are part of a liturgical denomination then the color of the day is red. I am preaching in Rocket and Palmer tomorrow. The title of my sermon is “God is in the House and the House is Gonna Rock!” I ask your prayers as I deliver this message to these dear congregations.

Prayer: “Father, I confess that I am nothing without You. You are the Creator; I’m merely the creature. You are the Redeemer; I am the redeemed. You are my everything. Amen”

1 John 2: 15-17 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father, but is of this world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Wow! Tonight’s scripture passage is pretty tough as is the meditation that goes along with it. In short, when we love the world, it squeezes out the love we have for God. On the other hand, the less we love the world the more our love for God increases. Satan is the author of sin and is constantly on the prowl, tempting us through our eyes and through pride. One of the quotes from my meditation speaks of Satan saying that Satan ”offers pleasure and never the price tag.” Satan uses our eyes as the front door to which Satan enters, offering us desires that we really do not need. Satan then enters through our sinful pride. “Pride is the ground in which all other sins grow, and the parent from which all the other sins come.” There is nothing that Satan can offer that we can take with us and there is nothing he can offer that will give us everlasting peace or eternal love.

Sometimes we think we are on a pretty high spiritual plane and so are beyond Satan’s reach. I believe that is where the issue of pride comes in. We will never be out of Satan’s reach until we are united with the Father in heaven, but until that time we can do a couple of things to help keep Satan behind us. First, we can keep facing forward, never looking right or left, just keeping our eyes fixed on the One who created us for His own pleasure and who loves us most. Next, we can stop living on the faith that runs “paycheck to paycheck.” That is a faith build on worldly measure. We need to live in God’s will for our lives each and every day and His supply of the things we need will always be readily at hand.

Take joy in the journey. Count your blessings and say your prayers. When we pray tonight let us ask for forgiveness when we look to the world for satisfaction and ask God to help us to seek His face and will for our lives and keep Satan and His empty promises out of our sight. Thank you mighty and faithful prayer warriors. Love you, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.