Children's Moment: Love Your Neighbor

(Dressed as a farmer – dirty shirt, handkerchief, dirty work gloves, jeans, boots)

Do you like my outfit?  Do you think this is an appropriate outfit for church?  What about going on a date?  Or what about going shopping?  Do you think if you saw me eating in a nice restaurant you would want to say hi to me or come give me a hug?  It might be embarrassing to some people.  Some might even turn the other way to avoid being embarrassed by knowing me.

You see, this is how I dress just about every single day.  I work really hard on our farm.  Most days I look worse than this.  I have sweat dripping from my face and dirt all over my clothes and I may even stink after working outside all day.  My job is to work the earth.  If you look out in the audience, you will see people that don’t always look like they do today.  There are car salesmen, lawyers, doctors, construction workers, ministers, gardeners, teachers, plumbers, and all other sorts of gifted and unique people in our congregation. 

Do you know people who look different than you?  Do you know anyone who acts different than you? It’s really easy to not want to love someone because they look different or act different isn’t it?  Do you know what God has to say about this though?

When I was reading Mark 12:28 a scribe asks Jesus which commandment of all the commands is the most important of all.  ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Did you hear that last part?  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these.”  So God doesn’t tell us to love someone if they look or act a certain way does he?  He just tells us to love them.  You are going to meet many different types of people in your life.  You never know what someone is going through or how you might be able to help them.  My hope and prayer for you today is that you will show God’s love to everyone, no matter their appearance.  You might be the only friendly face that person sees.

I also hope that the next time you see me as a farmer; you won’t be embarrassed to give me a hug!

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.  I thank you for bringing these children into your house of worship to hear your word this morning.  I ask that you would help each one of us to love our neighbor as you have commanded.  We love you and praise you forever, In Jesus name, Amen.

Do YOUR Part!

PLEASE take the time to READ and SHARE this posting. I am writing this with the knowledge that this may upset, even anger a few AND with the knowledge that MANY will agree and support this writing. We have a local organization,Ozark Share and Care. This organization was established in 1987 to give Harrison and surrounding county residents a CENTRAL location to accept HELP when or if they needed it. Help in the way of food, clothing, household items, bedding, furniture and other emergency services. For 27, that's right TWENTY SEVEN years, they have operated through the sale of donated items in their thrift store and the generous donations of community members through financial and material donations. Ozark Share and Care was created through a UNIFIED effort of MANY community members, organizations and churches. Reread that last line . . . UNIFIED effort. Before Share and Care existed, people went from church to church, organization to organization and requested goods, services and money. This was too much for individual organizations to shoulder, so they UNIFIED and pooled their resources to do a BETTER, more efficient job at assisting those in need.

Share and Care doesn't turn people away. They love people regardless of race, religion, nationality, physical, or mental abilities. That's right, there is no discrimination. This organization is run by volunteers. Volunteers with HEART. Volunteers who have given hugs, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, cried and prayed with a man or woman in need.

Share and Care is EQUIPPED to handle FRESH and FROZEN food items for distribution. They are EQUIPPED to handle large truckloads of food. They distribute to over 600 families EVERY single week! 600!!! They BUY LOCALLY and invest nearly $10,000 a month into our LOCAL economy in grocery purchases.

I have been VERY disheartened in the last few months as I watch numerous churches and organizations start-up their own food banks and charitable organizations. I am not saying these are ill-intended, I am saying that this is weakening the strength of a FANTASTIC community resource. This is BREAKING apart a community resource. When you ask that people donate to your charity, whether it's goods or money, it is taking a necessary resource away from a well-rooted, rock-solid, community resource. I have heard every reasoning from "we want to feed the children" to "we want to save souls". You really want to do that? Team up with Share and Care. Volunteer your time and efforts. Head-up a kids food pantry, solicit donations or stand in line with folks and talk to them about Jesus.

Since I know this facebook posting isn't going to change the way people are operating, I PRAY PRAY PRAY that it will spark a conversation. I pray that you will take time to UNIFY and GIVE BACK to an organization that is in GREAT NEED. Clean out your closets/houses and donate to Share & Care thrift shop. GO SHOPPING at the Share & Care thrift store, it's chalked full of great finds! Give-up fast food for a month and donate it to Share & Care and feeding those in need. Give-up a Saturday morning and donate your time and efforts to Share & Care.

Saying I am PASSIONATE about this is an understatement. Think of your favorite beautiful, warm, winter sweater. If you remove one strand from the sweater, it will start to come apart. Remove two strands and it will weaken and fray even more. Continue this and eventually you will have no sweater that protects you from the storm. PROTECT Share & Care, guard this organization and do your part.

Religious or not, you can agree, taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves is our duty!

Thank you for reading this.Here is a link so that YOU can donate to Share & Care today https://www.npcsecure.com/formbuilder/Vpos2.aspx

Proverbs 22:9 Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.

Children's Moment: Love HIM Like You Want to be Loved

Do you know someone that loves you?  How do you know they love you?

Do they make you dinner?  Wash your clothes? Take you places?

Last night Adam took me on a date.  He opened the doors for me, prayed over our dinner, gave me a good hug and kiss and told me he loved me during our date.  We had a wonderful time.  While sitting in the restaurant we were sitting between two couples and we got to listen to both couples since they were both very vocal. 

The first couple didn’t say much to each other unless the husband needed something.  When he needed something he would say “Woman, go get me a spoon” or “go get me a bowl of jello”.  He didn’t say please or thank you and the wife never said a word, just did what she was told, but she looked sad and tired. 

The second couple were quite a bit different.  All during dinner the husband kept telling his wife “Honey, I love you.  You are such a good partner.  You are so beautiful.  Thank you so much for choosing me.”  Without a word, the wife would fix him a plate, cut up his food and even wiped her husband’s chin when he spilled sweet and sour sauce out of his mouth.  She did all of these things lovingly and even got up out of her seat several times to give him a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug and would whisper in his ear “I love you”.

These couples reminded me a lot about our relationship with God.  God loves us, but do we tell Him how much we love him or do we just talk to God when we need something like the first couple?  Be kind with your words to God, praise Him all the time not only through our actions but also in our words. Psalm 150:6 states Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.  Praise the LORD.

Can you think of words to praise the Lord?  How about “I love you Lord”, “You are my rock”, “You are awesome”.

Make sure to take time this week to praise the Lord, not just by your actions but also by your words.

Let’s pray.  Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for being such a wonderful friend.  You are the best.  You are magnificent.  We love you and praise you forever and ever.  Amen.

Church Moments for Children

I was recently asked by a few friends if I would share some of the short sermons which I have presented in the past to our children's group at church.  Our church refers to these as "Children's Moments", so I also referred to them as such on my blog.  I have posted these on my blog in no particular date or order (sorry).  I often read stories that spark an idea, so hoping this does the same for my friends.  Thank you for allowing me to share!

Here is the link to my blog:http://iwisheverydayweretoday.blogspot.com/

Children's Moment: What do I say to God?

Have you ever tried to think of something to say but you just couldn’t think of anything or at least anything right to say?  Well, that’s what happened for today.  I put on my thinking cap and still nothing came to mind.  I couldn’t think of some great story or fun topic.  I think my brain went on vacation and forgot to tell me.

While I was thinking about not having anything to think about at all, I was reminded of something Adam said to me on the way to school one morning.  You see, each morning before school, we pray as a family.  I give each of the kiddos a turn to pray.  On this particular morning, it was Adam’s turn.  He had a really good question “What do I say to God mom?”   Adam has prayed many times before and had never asked that question, so it kind of caught me off guard. 

Have you ever felt like that?  Have you ever felt like “What do I say to God? Is he even listening? I can’t say all those fancy words the preacher says. I don’t really have anything to ask for and I can’t think of anything interesting, so what do I say to God?”  I gave Adam an answer that morning, but thought I should turn to the Bible and find out what God says about prayer.  Some of the scriptures I ran across.

Psalms 55:17 - Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

Matthew 21:22 - And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

So what does this mean for us?  God doesn’t tell us that we must use fancy smancy words when we pray.  He simply says “PRAY”.  Pray all the time and he will hear your voice.  Kind of cool right . . . no matter what time of the day or night, God hears us.   Did you know God is our heavenly father?  Since he is our father, our dad, we should speak to him like we would want to speak to a father right?  Tell Him how much you love Him. Tell Him about your day – all the good and bad things.  Ask Him to help you with what you cannot do on your own and tell Him thank you for helping you each day.  God just wants to spend time with us and that is what prayer allows for us to do, spend time with our heavenly Dad.  He LOVES to hear your voice and He LOVES to spend time with you.  The more time you spend with Him, the more you will know how to talk with Him.  Just remember, it’s not the words we use, God just wants to be with us, just like a dad wants to be with His kids.

Let us pray: Dear God, thank you for being my best friend, my helper, my strength, and my dad.  Thank you for this beautiful day.  Thank you for always being available to talk with us and for hearing us when we talk.  It’s in Jesus name, Amen.

Children's Moment: Hope in sunflowers

Wooo hooooo!!!!!  Does anyone know what tomorrow is?  It’s the first day of school for most of you.  How exciting right?

Have any of you ever gotten nervous about returning to school?  Or trying a new activity? Or meeting new friends?  Or even sharing your faith, sharing Jesus with someone?

Well, I have.  I have gotten nervous about starting new jobs, making new friends and about sharing my faith with others.  I am a planner, which means I like to know exactly what is going to happen, all the time.  I don’t always know how every situation will turn out and that sometimes causes me to worry or be a bit nervous. 

When I think about my feelings of “not knowing”, I think about my sunflowers.  Sounds funny right?  Early on in the summer, we had great rains.  All of our crops were washed away – corn, squash, beans, okra.  We replanted and again, all of our crops were washed away, or so I thought.  I was beginning to think we wouldn’t have a single crop this year, I was getting pretty worried.  After a week of dry weather, I decided to go out once more to look at our crop fields to determine what we needed to do.  I walked past our first plot and saw only weeds had survived the rains, the same for the second plot . . . only weeds, I was becoming very disheartened, but proceeded on to our third plot.  In front of our third plot stands a cross which is about 10’ tall.  I made my way over to the cross and stood there saying a little prayer “Lord, I don’t know what we should do or if having a garden is even a good idea, but I have faith that you can make our plants grow”.  As I had my head bowed, I noticed something green and in a straight row growing. Guess what?  It was the sunflowers I had planted.  They were growing straight up, despite the wind and washouts.  Those sunflowers gave me hope.

We replanted our crops again and have had a bountiful harvest despite the rains this year.  One of my favorite harvests was yesterday.  We harvested our first batch of sunflowers.  From this tiny little seed, 8 foot tall plants grew and now we have thousands of sunflower seeds which we will get to enjoy.

God tells us in Matthew 17:20

Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

As you return to school this week, I hope you will remember, nothing is impossible for God.  He can help you with anything you need.  Next time you get a little nervous, remember the sunflowers and God’s promise – nothing is impossible.

Let us pray: Dear God, thank you for this beautiful day.  Thank you for letting us worship in your house today.  Thank you for all that you provide.    I pray that each one of the children is able to trust you, to have faith even as small as a sunflower seed.  It’s in Jesus name, Amen.

Children's Moment: Rotten to the core

WOW! What beautiful rain we have had this week!  What a blessing to have rain during the summer heat.

With all this rain, my garden is thriving.  I have more cucumbers, squash and zucchini than I can pick each day.  Yesterday was an exceptional day for gardening.  In the morning we had a cool breeze flowing so it was a perfect time to work in my tomato patch.  As I worked staking up my tomatoes and pulling weeds, I ran across some beautiful red and yellow tomatoes.  Of course I was soooooo excited to see these little jewels, they are my favorite summertime garden pick.  Aggie was kind enough to pick and wash the tomatoes and then she bagged and gave most of them to some special friends who visited the farm yesterday.  She kept a few back for me to enjoy though and for that I am soooo grateful.  They were delicious!

I was a little hesitant to eat the tomatoes though.  You know why?  Well, the other day I found the perfect, round, red tomato.  I was thrilled as it was our first tomato of the season!  I carefully picked and washed it, then sliced it in half.  Do you know what I found?  It was awful!  The bloom had never fallen off the tomato and had grown inside the tomato causing it to rot inside the tomato.  Do you know what would have happened if the tomato would have been left alone?  It would have eventually rotted all the way to the outside becoming as ugly on the outside as it was on the inside.

When I was thinking of the rotten tomato it made me think of us and how sin can do the same thing in our lives.  Sin comes in many different forms such as lying, taking something that doesn’t belong to you, being disrespectful to parents or friends, talking badly of others, or being unkind to someone.  If we do not ask God to forgive us of our sins and ask Him to help us do better, we are like the rotting tomato . . . we may look good on the outside, but rotting on the inside.  Eventually our sins will begin to show themselves to others and we will be like the rotting tomato, not only will our sin be in our hearts, but it will show on the outside to others as well.

Psalm 51:10-12 states my prayer for all of us the best

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.
¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

I pray that we will be able to turn to God and ask Him to forgive us of our sins and ask him to help us to become more like Him.

Let us pray: Dear God, thank you for this beautiful day.  Thank you for letting us worship in your house today.  Thank you for all that you provide.    I pray that we can turn from our ways and look to you for help today.  It’s in Jesus name, Amen.