Tag: Reverend

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday August 13TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

I’m with my longtime Homestead church family for the 3RD Sunday in a row. That hasn’t happened since I closed on my new home in Sebring in March. Next Sunday I’ll be with my new Sebring church family, and – as long as it’s not canceled again – I plan to attend the welcome lunch for new church attendees where leadership and others meet and greet us, and we formally introduce ourselves to them. (That should be very interesting.)

And now here on #SundayScripture it’s the continuation of the refresh, renew, and reboot of my sermon on “Pray & Believe” – originally preached on Sunday June 16TH 2019. Here’s Part 4:

[CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK]

So who has this confident hope ?

The Bible says – We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something – we don’t need to hope for it. [We don’t need to wait for it.] But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have – we must wait patiently and confidently.) And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example – we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. (Romans 8:24-8:27)

The Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings. I like that. That’s kind of like that hemming and hawing and stuttering and stalling when we pray. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense what comes out of our mouths. Sometimes the words become gibberish – gobbledygook. That’s the Holy Spirit within our hearts. He’s intervening for us before God. He’s pleading for us – His holy people. And the Father knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Father knows what’s on our hearts.

Don’t you just love that ? You see – we may not make sense sometimes to each other or even to ourselves when we pray, but we make perfect sense to our Father through the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is powerful. It’s the most powerful thing that we can do. It’s the most important thing that we can do. Sometimes – it’s the only thing that we can do – pray – and believe.

The start of Acts Chapter 12 tells us the story of King Herod Agrippa. He was the grandson of Herod The Great – King Of Judea. He too was the King Of Judea about 45 years after his grandfather – or about 10 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was King for just a short period of time – about 3 years. He was very popular with the Jewish people. He persecuted some of the believers of the church in Jerusalem. Jesus had predicted persecution for His followers. God said:

“I will send prophets and apostles to them, but they will kill some and persecute the others. As a result – this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world – from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah.” (Luke 11:49b-11:51a)

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday August 06TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

I observe and celebrate a bunch of personal life-changing anniversaries during the month of August. But definitely – the most life-changing event of them all – occurred around the 20TH of August of 2006 when my salvation in Jesus Christ began. If it weren’t for that miracle from Heaven – I wouldn’t be here today, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog today. I probably wouldn’t be alive today. That’s right. For 17 years I’ve believed and followed a living and loving God who guides and directs me with each new day.

This morning I’m leading my church family in Communion. It was 7 years ago this weekend that I did so for the very first time for my current church family. For this morning’s Communion I’ll be explaining to my brothers and sisters why we observe and celebrate Communion at the start of every month.

And now here on #SundayScripture it’s the continuation of the refresh, renew, and reboot of my sermon on “Pray & Believe” – originally preached on Sunday June 16TH 2019. Here’s Part 3:

[CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK]

You know when I was a young’un on this journey I thought of praying as being very intimidating. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say it. But then when I was asked to pray, and I improvised, and I did it, and I kept on doing it – it became less intimidating.

You know which # 1 best-selling “how-to” book I used to teach me how to pray ? The Bible. God’s Word teaches us how to pray.

The Bible says “keep on praying.” That’s a short 3-word verse in First Thessalonians Chapter 5. That’s actually the New Living Translation First Edition. That verse was updated for the Second Edition from “keep on praying” to “never stop praying”. Now it doesn’t mean to pray with every single breath and every waking moment. It means don’t give up when troubles come your way. Pray.

I learned this verse early on as a baby Christian. It helped me a lot:

Don’t worry about anything. Instead – pray about (what’s that next word ?) everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. (Philippians 4:6)

I’ve heard it said that worry is a conversation you have with yourself about things you can’t change. But prayer is a conversation you have with God about things He can change.

When I pray – almost every sentence has the words “Thank You” in it. I thank God for the current situation. I thank the Lord for what He’s already done. I thank Him for what He’s going to do.

I like Romans 12:12 – Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and (do what ?) keep on praying.

You see when we rejoice in our confident hope – when we trust in Christ – we can be patient in times of trouble. Praying to God shows God that we truly trust in Him. Praying to God from the valleys confirms to Him that we believe that He is in control, and that He is right there with us – leading us out of the valley.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday July 30TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

This morning I’ll be back at my longtime home church in Homestead Florida for the first of 4 out of 5 Sundays through August. It’ll be good to be back with my brothers and sisters of my small church family.

So last #SundayScripture I started something a bit different. I’m taking one of my sermons from a few years ago – and I’m updating it. It’s a refresh and renew of something old.

Once I’m done updating it in its entirety – I plan to preach it to my church family. But this time – you’ll get it first – as it’s being recreated a week at a time here on #SundayScripture.

And now – Part 2 of my updated sermon on “Pray & Believe” – originally preached on Sunday June 16TH 2019:

[CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK]

I remember being asked to pray for the first time in public (out loud) in a small church group setting one day. I got really nervous. My hands started to tremble. I started to sweat. But I knew I couldn’t say “no”. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t say “no”.

I began to talk. It was more like hemming and hawing and stuttering and stalling. What came out of my mouth kind of sort of resembled a prayer. I kind of just repeated what I’d heard others say in a prayer – just in my own simple everyday words. And everyone around me was in agreement, and they said AMEN. I think my brothers and sisters were thinking, “Well Chris is new at all of this, and he’ll get better as time goes on.” Or maybe they were thinking, “Sounds good to me. Good prayer Chris !”

We should encourage one another’s prayers. I’ve heard a lot of powerful prayers here in this place, and at some of our restaurants that we’ve gathered at together in fellowship and food. Each and every one of us is fully capable of saying a prayer that can brighten a day – a prayer that can change a life forever. God blessed us with that gift. We must use it every day. The more we pray – the better we get at it. The more we pray – the more we glorify our living and loving God.

I’ve heard people – church members included (not here – elsewhere) – belittle other people’s praying. I don’t believe that it’s ever productive to question or criticize one’s prayers to God. That’s our intimate dialogue or conversation between us and our God. It’s intimate whether we talk to Him out loud, or quietly. It’s intimate whether we talk to Him with others around, or with no one around. See the Good News is that our God hears us when we yell and scream. He hears us when we talk normally. He hears us when we whisper gently. He hears us when we’re quiet. He hears our thoughts. He’s that powerful. Nobody else in all creation is that powerful. He is God Almighty !

My leaders at that time (when I was learning how to pray – about 16 years ago) made it a point to ask me to lead everyone in prayer on a regular basis – to build-up my courage – to increase my confidence. With time they had me leading prayer for the entire church body at our Sunday morning services. That was back when I was still terrified of speaking in front of groups of people. My God got rid of that fear of public speaking that I once had.

For several years I was part of a small group that met every Saturday morning at our church building in our office area. There were about 5 of us. Sometimes a few more. Sometimes less than that. We met for about an hour-and-a-half to two hours every Saturday morning starting at 9:30. We met for fellowship, and to share Scripture to get closer to God. And then we read all of the prayer requests that our church family had written down at the previous Sunday morning services.

Everyone in attendance at all of our Sunday morning services filled-out what we called “connection cards”. We’d spend about 5 minutes at each service completing these connection cards with all of our current information – name, address, telephone number, E-Mail address, and so on. Down at the bottom of the connection cards there was space for general comments and prayer requests. We read all of those prayer requests out loud on Saturday mornings, and then we prayed for all of them all-together. We also prayed for our Pastor, and our church leaders, and our Sunday morning services that would occur the next morning. We prayed for our homes, our neighborhoods, our city, our county, our state, our nation, and our world. There was a lot of praying on those Saturday mornings. I learned a lot on those Saturday mornings – hanging out with some real prayer warriors.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday July 23RD 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

I’m going to do something a bit different starting with this edition of #SundayScripture – and continuing for the next few months. I’m going to take one of my sermons from a few years ago – and update it. It’ll be a refresh and renew of something old. You see my God – your God if you believe and follow – is doing a new thing, and it springs forth.

Once I’m done updating it in its entirety – I plan to preach it to my brothers and sisters of my church family. But this time – you’ll get it first – as it’s being recreated a week at a time here on #SundayScripture.

And now – Part 1 of my updated sermon on “Pray & Believe” – originally preached on Sunday June 16TH 2019:

You know 17 years into this fantastic journey of believing and following our God – I still struggle with prayer. And I think that – if we’re being honest – we all struggle with prayer – no matter how long we’ve been saved.

Prayer is difficult. I know I just prayed before you. It was spontaneous. It was from the heart. It was what the Holy Spirit placed on my heart at that precise moment in time. It sounded like a lot of my prayers. My prayers out loud – standing up here – at the pulpit – they sound very much like my prayers in private – at home – or in my car.

I know that God heard me. I know that God heard all of us – as we prayed together. See – whenever a brother or a sister is up here – or down there – or at the restaurant – or at the dinner table – leading us in prayer – God hears not just the vocal one. God hears each and every one of us – in unison – as one church body. When one leads a prayer, and we’re all bowing our heads together in reverence (or in awe) to God – that means we’re all praying. God hears all of us praying together.

But I struggle with prayer. Sometimes the right words are not there at the right time. Sometimes we just try too hard in praying. We just need to talk to God in our normal everyday talk. Don’t need fancy words. I don’t use fancy words. I don’t know many fancy words. I didn’t do very good (or is it very well ?) in English 9, and 10, and 11, and 12 in high school. But yet I’m a blogger and I’m a preacher, so I must’ve learned something good from those high school classes all of those years ago.

So we just need to plain talk to God. Whatever comes out of our mouth in the spur of the moment. And we all have that capability – as children of God. And God already knows who each and every one of us is, so we don’t need to impress Him with fancy talk. He hears us when we speak. He hears us when we think.

Praying is relatively new for me. I’ve been saved for going on 17 years now. It’ll be 17 years this August. I was not born and raised here, but I was saved and born again here – in Homestead.

You know for the first year or so of this journey for me – I didn’t pray. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to pray. It was because I didn’t know how to pray. I even asked God to teach me how to pray during that first year. I later realized that I was already praying to Him when I asked Him to do that. You see – talking to God – is praying to God.

And really – as I look back upon those early couple of years of salvation – I almost felt unqualified to pray. Back then I thought to myself – who am I to pray to a God I just met ? I relied on other people around me – my brothers and sisters of my church family – who had been saved much longer than me – to pray, and I agreed with everything they prayed, and I AMENed their prayers.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp