Enter With Thanksgiving!!! 

    One of the most beautiful Psalms of Thanksgiving is the 100th Psalm. It says: "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, & we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. "Enter His gates with thanksgiving & His courts with praise; give thanks to Him & praise His name. For the Lord is good & His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."
    With all my heart I believe we are a people & a nation that God has truly blessed. Of all those who "give thanks to Him & praise His name" we should be at the top! Compiling a wish list at Christmas is common, and to draw up a list of resolutions for New Years is normal. However, there is another list we often overlook - a Thanksgiving Day list of all that we are thankful for.
    Let me give you a small part of a list that several housewives compiled. They wrote that they were especially thankful:

- "For automatic dishwashers because they make it possible for us to get out of the kitchen before the family comes back in for their after-dinner snacks.
- "For husbands who attack small repair jobs around the house because they usually make them big enough to call in the professionals.
- "For children who put away their things & clean up after themselves.  They’re such a joy you hate to see them go home to their own parents
- "For teenagers because they give parents an opportunity to learn a second language.
- "For Smoke alarms because they let you know when the turkey’s done.

    Now our list might not be the same as theirs, and I’m sure that it would include more that just our material possessions. Like you, I know that my list would include the major things - life, health, family, friends, & the nation we live in, despite all its flaws. Yet even more than that, I’m thankful for my salvation & the mercy that God showers upon us each day. With Jesus we have so much to celebrate on Thanksgiving!

Have a great Thanksgiving Day every day of your life!!!!


Pastor John J. Dodd

VETERAN’S DAY

    How many of us remember the Gulf War? It was the first "Prime Time" war that was ever viewed on national television. I remember that the war was never very far from our minds. We listened to the CNN news team in the Al Rashid hotel in Baghdad, in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and in Jerusalem. We saw the skies full of tracers, jets parked on airbase taxiways, news teams in gas masks, and bombs blowing apart military targets with star-wars accuracy. The television brought a war into our living rooms for the first time in history.
    Part of the difficulty that humans have is that there are times when the only choices available are choices between two evils. I’m sure that our desires as Christians would follow the passages in Micah and Isaiah that speak of beating swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks; But in the book of Joel, written under Greek oppression after the return from Babylon, these words appear: “Proclaim this among the nations: Sanctify war, stir up the warriors. Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.” You see, occasionally there is a need and a cause for war.
    Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address in 1864, captures some of the sadness of war: “Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, nor the duration, which it has already attained. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.” Abraham Lincoln saw how slavery had caused the Civil War and how the war therefore was God's judgment on a nation that had permitted slavery. “Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”
    Yes, as much as we hate it, there are warriors and veterans of wars. As we pray for peace in our lifetime, we must also honor the men and women who have given of their service and even their lives for the freedoms that we have. Today, let us say thank you to a veteran for their sacrifice!

In His Service

Pastor John J. Dodd

PRAYING FOR OUR NATION


A story is told about Francis Asbury (an itinerant Methodist preacher):
The sun was lowering and the air was like an oven when the stranger rode into town. No one had seen the likes of him before. Leather creaked as he slid out of the saddle. The ground shook as the big man’s boots hit the street. He hitched his horse to the rail, looked around, stepped up on the wooden sidewalk and headed toward the saloon. When his lengthening shadow spilled through the swinging doors a hush fell over the crowd. The bartender stopped pouring. The dealer stopped shuffling. The bar-girls stopped smooching their marks. Even the piano fell silent. Chairs creaked, and necks craned as every eye tried to catch a glimpse of the stranger. And then he said: "Got any praying people around here?"
America is still in need of praying people that will reach heaven for our great nation. We can win today’s battle the same way our forefathers in the faith won theirs. Still, we must ask the same question " . . . got any praying people around here?" Throughout American history there have been major times of widespread revival. One was during the Civil War. It continued through the war and to the turn of the century. There were estimates that as many as one million conversions took place. That, however, is not the most unique feature of this revival. The first startling feature was the dominance of lay leadership and the absence of the famous evangelists. The second startling feature was that it began with prayer meetings rather than preaching services.
As we spend another July 4th remembering our great nation and all the sacrifices that have been made for our freedoms, let us not forget the attacks on our Christian liberties. These attacks are generally not from out side America but from our own liberal judges, educators and government.
I still believe that God wants to send a spiritual revival here. Our job is to fulfill the scripture in 1 Timothy 2:1-3: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior.”
So let’s not forget our nation and leaders in prayer. I know that God will hear and send America another revival - because we have some praying people.

In His Service
Pastor John J. Dodd

TRUST THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART

When Theodore Roosevelt was the President of the United States, the story is told that he had a close friend with whom he enjoyed discussing situations around the world. After they would talk about contemporary scenarios and world events, they would walk out into the stillness of the night and cast their eyes on the stars to gain a clearer perspective of life and the world. They would search for a particular galaxy called Andromeda. The first one who found it would say, "That is the spiral galaxy, Andromeda. That speck is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of 100 million galaxies. It consists of 100 billion suns, each larger than our sun." Then, they would look at each other and say together, "Since we now have our proper perspective, let's go to bed."
In like manner, our perspective of God, world events, and our personal lives becomes much clearer when we cast our eyes on the stars. It is in the heavens where God can show us His power and control.
Life is more than an epic drama on the silver screen in theaters. It is a real battle between God and Satan, right and wrong, life and death, heaven and hell. It is a battle that involves the stars. The Bible states that due to the faith of Barak (Hebrews 11:32), the "stars fought from heaven, from their courses they fought against Sisera" (Judges 5:20). Barak was God's hero of faith. He led the nation of Israel in a victorious battle against Israel's ancient foe, the Canaanites.
If you are looking for comfort and reassurance in a life that you think is out of control, just look up. The God of eternity, the God of heaven and earth is keeping your life under His care just as He keeps this massive universe under His perfect control. When we have a perfect perspective, the worry and anxiety of life becomes easier to deal with.

Blessings!
Pastor John J. Dodd

A WHOLE LOT OF SHAKING GOING ON!


In HEBREWS 12:25-29 God speaks to us of things that can and cannot be shaken. The reason for the shaking is to reveal that which is of God and that which is not. And only those things that are of God will survive, and those things that are of the flesh will be destroyed.
The Bible tells us about two people who built their homes on different foundations. The wise man built his home on the rock. The foolish man built his home on the sand. Both experienced strong wind and rain that shook their homes. Only the home built on the right foundation survived.
The shaking of things is not always a negative. The disciples in Matthew 10:14 were told to shake the dust from their feet when they left a place that did not receive them. Rejection is a difficult thing to deal with. There are things in our past that try to hold onto us and serve as a constant reminder of a time gone bad. Jesus taught us that sometimes we need to shake the dust off our feet and move on.
Sometimes praying causes a shaking. In Acts 16:19 the Holy Spirit arrived on the scene and a physical manifestation took place. - the jail literally shook. Peter and Silas were released from prison and returned to their companions. In Acts 4:31 there was a prayer meeting that shook the very foundation of a building because of prayer. I have never experienced such a thing but I have been involved in some services where the glory of God was so strong that people thought that they were being shaken. It is a wonderful thing when God is present. The shaking is important, but the results of the shaking are what counts. The result is generally the ability to boldly speak the word of God and do His will in a fuller way.
Even our blessings are shaken together. In Luke 6:38 God speaks of His blessings toward us being shaken . . . so more blessings can fit in! I'm not looking for God just to dabble me with a blessing here and a blessing there. I'm looking for a blessing that is with good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. We want to avoid those things that can be shaken. And we want to cling to those things that cannot be shaken.
As mentioned earlier, there were two people who built their homes on two different foundations. The difference is that the wise man dug deep until he reached a firm foundation. And that foundation is always Christ Jesus!

Let's receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken!
Pastor John J. Dodd