The call. Get up and walk..........
Good Morning
Stand with me and lift up your bible and repeat after me.
This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I can do what it says I can do.
I am going to learn how to be what it says I can be.
Today I will learn more of the word of God.
The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.
I will never be the same.
I will never be the same.
In Jesus Name
Open your bibles to John Chapter 5 and say, “Amen” when you are there.
Let’s read from verse number 3 to verse number 8.
John 5:3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.
John 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
John 5:5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
John 5:7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
John 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
Sometimes we just need that little push to get started and believe in ourselves. Each of us has a purpose in life and the hard part is we let life take charge. Not our purpose.
With the way life moves along at a fast pace here on planet Earth, time goes by and we have missed out on things that we should have done.
Let me share a story. Some of you may have heard this before.
The Candy Cane
A candy maker wanted to make a candy that would be a witness of God’s love, so he made the Christmas Candy Cane.
He incorporated several symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ.
He began with a stick of pure white hard candy. White to symbolize the
Virgin birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and hard to symbolize the
Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church, and the firmness of the promises
of God.
The candy maker made the candy in the form of a "J" to represent the precious name of Jesus, who came to earth as our Savior.
It could also represent the staff of the "Good Shepherd" with which He reaches down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who,
like all sheep, have gone astray.
Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes.
He used three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed.
The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.
Unfortunately, the candy became known as the Candy Cane, a meaningless decoration seen at Christmas time.
But the meaning is still there for those who "have eyes to see and ears to hear."
Are we seeing and hearing what God is telling us?
We get so caught up with everything in our lives we miss out on the simple things and change our priorities to meet those needs instead of what God would like us to do.
Did you hear that?
What God would like us to do. Not what He makes us do.
But what He would like us to do. We have free will to;
“Love one another.”
I have been a patient before at a hospital and you might have been also. There are many people that require the help of a hospital because of health reasons in their lives. Did you notice that everyone that either is a patient or is a blessing and works there have several things in common?
They all breath air and they all bleed red.
They may be tall or short, thin or not, light skin color or darker.
There is no real black or white. They have all been created in God’s image.
Did you hear me?
We all have been made in His Image.
But does everyone follow Him? Do they follow the call?
Do they love one another?
Each one of us has a calling on our lives and that calling is not what you may think.
It is not one where God said, “You be a doctor, you be a teacher, or you own a bank.”
It is to love one another in His image so we can be a blessing here on His Earth. And it is to get up and walk. Amen?
Not to be famous.
Not so you will have 5,000 new “friends” on Facebook or Twitter.
But to show His love in someone’s life that needs it.
We have to get up and walk like the man at the well. He was focused on what he had not been able to do by which made him feel unworthy. He felt that he was not going to be able to get up and get in the water.
He needed to see that God loved Him and he had hope that would he be blessed. And wow, he sure was. Amen?
Can you imagine in these times that we live in here on His earth being told that you were going to have to wait 38 years and then you would have what you wanted in life?
Who would wait that long knowing it would be that long?
Would you?
But.....
Knowing and developing a relationship with Him through His son Jesus Christ creates the understanding of who God is and what He does with life.
It makes us persevere and allows us to grow in our lives to do what He wants us to do during our time here on earth.
God loves you and I so much that we cannot even imagine what that really is. His love for us is never ending.
Now. You are thinking, where are you going with this David?
The message is this.
Continue to hope like the man at the well, but walk in the faith more with what you do with your life.
They say it is easier for a person to watch a 3-hour football game on TV than to spend an hour feeding the homeless.
It is easier to go and lie on a beach under an umbrella for a better part of the day than to spend an hour reading to someone in a nursing home.
They say it is easier to spend 3 hours surfing on the internet than reading with you child.
We need to look at what we are doing through Jesus’ eyes and ask Him to help us in our time here on earth to get up and walk toward sharing His love daily.
Our time on the planet earth is short but we can accomplish many things in the great commission that He has called us to.
Love one another.
I saw a story on the internet about a father and son walking on the streets of New York in the early evening giving cookies and a small American flag to each of the many police officers that were serving and protecting the streets from unrest.
Why were they doing that?
Because the little boy told his dad that he was taught in Sunday school that all of God’s children are called to go out and love one another. His dad listened and said, “Let’s go.”
Get up and walk.... And love one another.
Be what He created in you when He created you in His image. Amen?
Let us pray.......
