Category : Positive Written Sermons

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry.

03Jan

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – What’s In A Name?

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - What's In A Name?

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration with their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

Here is an example:

First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA)
Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

Allow me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a little boy who was walking along with his mother. As they were walking along, he was looking down at the sidewalk. As he was looking, he noticed a little flower that was growing up out of the hard concrete. He asked his mother, “How can this possibly be?”

She responded, “Honey, it is because the flower has life.”

We all have life. Yet we hit the concrete walls of life, whatever we have made them to be, and they seem too hard. Yet, if a little flower has the power to rise above circumstances and grow through adversity, we have the same power. No matter what obstacle there is in our life currently, we have the power to go through IF we are using our faith correctly.

A lady in Kentucky was telling how she grew up in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. They put newspapers on the walls; that was their only form of insulation. She said generation after generation after generation had lived in the same house.

I looked at her and asked her why she was different. What gave her the power to move out of this one-room house? She said something that is important for us. She said, “I guess I came to the belief inside of my mind that I could have better.” That was her turning point. Otherwise, she would still be in that one-room house.

All the relatives before complained about living in that house. But they didn’t know where the door was. They knew where the physical door was, but they didn’t know where the door to change their circumstances was. I think that everyone who is looking to change the circumstances of his or her life is looking for a physical door. But the true power lies in the spiritual door.

“Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. God brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.” Genesis 2:19

Through our God-given free will, we name a lot more than animals, we name every condition, every problem, and it becomes its nature to us – good, or bad.

When you are in Atlanta, Georgia, never miss the opportunity to visit the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Street. Over sixty years ago, a young co-minister in his thirties, by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., ministered there. Stand up on the stage where he stood.

Stand in the pulpit of this very small church. Ask the administrator, “What was the change? What was it from this one small room that told you that you could change the world?”

She will tell you, “I guess the turning point was when we realized we could do it. At that point, I guess we gave ourselves the power, and then God empowered us.”

The thing we try to do in this church is to lay possibilities on you, not guilt trips. We try to lay God’s message on you so you can lift above where you are in this life.

If there was ever a church against a wall, it was the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the early 60s. But they believed. And that belief brought forth a God empowered life, the same life that is in the little flower. And they were able to change the walls around them.

You, too, are able to change anything former walls that have confined you. Any condition outside of you does not have life – unless you give it life. You give it life by the way you name it. Think about the various areas of your life. What names have you given them, or the conditions they create?

There’s a wonderful story about Michelangelo. He was in a field one day and stumbled on a huge block of marble that had been lying there for about forty years. It was almost hidden in the old pottery and furniture. It has been hacked and chipped away by some other sculptor and then was thrown away as worthless.

Michelangelo found some men to help him move it. While they were moving it, they teased him. They said, “This is a worthless piece of marble. It’s heavy. We don’t want to move it.”

Michelangelo said, “Even though it was rejected by another, I see something great in this piece of marble. I see an angel.”

They continued to laugh. But that piece of marble brought forth the famous peace called “David” which is prized by all of Italy.

“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” Heb 11:3

The word of God is not just on the printed page, it is also the still small voice that inspires you, up lifts you, brings you to a higher state of living.

I wonder what would happen with some of your problems – if someone else took over the management of them. They would either fail, or they would succeed. And if they were to succeed, they would have to see an “angel” in your problem ahead of time.

Someone gave a man who traveled a great deal a marvelous book that he would take with him when he traveled. It lists the best places to eat in America. He looked in this book under Atlanta, Georgia, and found that on Tarrel Mill Road in Marietta, Georgia, was Big Ed’s Pit Barbecue, one of the best places to eat in America. He went there, and it was not easy to find. His daughter said, “Dad, there’s no one in the parking lot.” And there was no one inside. It looked like no one had been inside of Big Ed’s for some time.

He went in there holding his book like you would hold a Bible. He went up to the counter, opened his book and ordered just the way it told him to order. Big Ed came out. The man said, “Do you realize you are one of the best places to eat in America?”

Big Ed laughed.

The traveler said, “You’re right here in this book.”

Big Ed said, “What are you talking about?” He didn’t know he was listed in that book.

The traveler said, “I imagine that place wouldn’t have been open for much longer. It looked like Big Ed had lost his zeal. There wasn’t any life or enthusiasm in the place. But while we were eating, everyone in the place was reading this book to see what was written about Big Ed’s.”

He left Big Ed’s Pit Barbecue seeing a changed restaurant. He bet that place would become one of the biggest successes in Atlanta because they saw themselves differently. They now know, without a doubt, that they are one of the best restaurants in America.

When he was leaving, they were shouting to each other about how they were going to change the sign outside, how they were going to have the books for sale inside, how they were going to have the reprint enlarged upon one wall.

You know that’s not going to change the business. What changed the business was their attitude. What changed the business was the way they imagined it to be.

“You will decree a thing and it will be established for you and light will shine on your ways” Job 22:28

“Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit-you choose” Proverbs 18:20-22 (Message Bible)

The Bible says that you have the power to name everything in life. When you name something in your life, you are also identifying its nature. It is using your God-given power to decree the nature of a thing.

If you name anything in your life a failure, I guarantee your God-given power will be wasted as you create a failure. If you name anything a success, God will work through you to bring it to pass. Whatever you pray for will come to pass in your life. We have to be careful; we have to constantly check ourselves. How are we imagining our life, and conditions to be?

We don’t realize it, but we fall into the human mind patterns of lack and limitation automatically. We have to name God-given good in every area. Sometimes you’re up against a wall, you don’t know how to call it good, and it takes every bit of faith inside of you, but know that God will never let you down. God will come through you and create that which you are naming and praying for.

On this day, I invite you to name God good in every area of your life and every area will be filled to overflowing with God’s blessing. I invite you to affirm positively with your prayers.

I have a Ziggy cartoon by Tom Wilson that I want to share with you. Ziggy is talking to a priest. He says to the priest, “If your cup runneth over, maybe you should consider getting a bigger cup.” Maybe that’s true.

Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (Author of the Power of Positive Thinking) believed that almighty God freely bestows the good things in this world in proportion to a person’s mental readiness to receive. An individual coming to the Divine storehouse with a teaspoon thinking lack will receive only a teaspoon full. Another more positive and believing person coming forward confidently with a gallon container will receive a gallon of life’s blessings. We can receive only that which we expect according to our faith.

I urge you to make your inner voice a force for success and happiness. I invite you to substitute accurate, positive thoughts for false messages of fear. The walls of life are within the mind, that constructs, or tears down self-imposed walls.

Arnold Bennet has said, “Your mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can ever enter except by your permission.” Consciousness inside of you is awareness. You have consciousness in this room right now. You have a feeling of the chair underneath you. You have a sense of the temperature in the room. You have a sense of what is going on. You are picking it up with all your senses. Consciousness is the sum total of your awareness.

We have to go beyond yesterday. We have to know without a doubt that we can go beyond and rise again into something higher.

When you have an idea, where does it come from? Does it come from your own mind? If you are a writer sitting at a desk with no idea of what to write, and all of a sudden you are filled with ideas, where do they come from? They come from God. That’s not a separate, far-off God. That is a God who is there with you, by your side, working through you, empowering you.

God can be relied on. That God will never let you down. Those ideas will flow whether you are writing a letter to a friend or trying to come up with an idea to change your life. Those ideas will manifest. Those ideas will empower you.

There is fourth dimensional Power with you. It will come through you as you name and pray for something to be. What level are we going to the storehouse of God with? A teaspoon? A gallon? Or is it so good that we need a bigger cup? I say to you that it is so good that you’d better get a bigger cup. You’d better fill yourself up because God is the great giver of gifts and the gifts are Divine ideas. We have to consent to God’s good and know that these Divine ideas will come. The inspiration and help of God never stops flowing through you even when you’re not receptive to it.

Do not give too close study to yourself or your present condition. To dwell in mind upon your seeming limitations only prolongs their stay and makes your progress slow.

That is usually what we do. We sit there and took at our problems and study them. We could become a Ph. D. in our problems. When you take out the garbage, don’t go through the garbage. That can be a dirty, messy job. It will cause you to smell, and you’ll have to cleanse yourself. You don’t look at every egg shell. You don’t look at the trash you threw away last week.

A child loses sight of everything but his increase in size. The boy sees himself as the larger boy, even as a man. It is the childlike mind that finds the kingdom.

This is true. I know a little boy who is just five years old, but he thinks he’s 38. Because he thinks this way, he grows and he becomes the man.

There is no problem you face today that is going to hinder you. No problem can stop you because God’s power is greater. God is bigger than your problems! The bottom line is – God can’t be stopped, unless in your free-will you name it stopped.

Act as though you were alive, and glad to be alive, and you will gain a new realization of life and an increase in life itself. You need an increase in life, an enthusiasm for life, an aliveness in life in the moment. You need to rise above human thinking of lack and limitation, and you can only do it through God’s help.

Pray for more God-Life to go through you and into your situation. It will always be good. It’s never anything less. When God is working with you, it is always good. And, it’s always been much better than you could even imagine.

To do this, let us look to the beginning of the Bible to the six steps of creation.

The first step of creation: Let there be light. Let there be light in your own mind. You are in the darkness of the problem. You’ve had the courage to take out the garbage, but you are still feeling empty. You feel like you don’t have enough life to go on. You don’t know where the motivation is going to come from. You say LET THERE BE LIGHT and you consent to the illumination of God working in you. That is first and foremost in every problem.

The second step of creation: A firmament, or a foundation, must be established. A firm place in the mind must be established. This is done through prayer affirmation, through positive naming. Yes, you’re going to create something through faith. You’re going to re-create. You’re going to regenerate. You’re going to have a whole new experience.

The third step of creation: The forming of faith substance into tangibility. Let the dry land appear. We tend to imagine with our human mind everything outside ourselves in a three-dimensional world. Here we are talking about the spiritual fourth dimension. We are talking about bringing from the fourth dimension through you a creation in the third dimension. No matter what religion you are, you have faith that something is going to happen, and you hold to that. God is working, and everywhere present, bringing your prayers into manifestation. Your prayers are drawn with the speed. And it can’t be stopped unless you decide to stop it. You have that belief and the dry land appears; it is something that you can step on, hold on to, and see.

The fourth step of creation: Pray. Why do you pray? You don’t pray to change God. Are you begging and beseeching God to change? No. You’re praying to change yourself. You’re praying to develop a habit of positive thought. You pray as Jesus Christ says to, you pray constantly. You create a pipeline through yourself that can never be blocked. It can shatter the walls of the problems in your life. Nothing can stand up to God.

The fifth step of creation: See what you need as already manifest, how else will it come? If you don’t come with the fifty-gallon container ready to hold it, it has no place to go. Are you praying for a new car? Better have room in the garage!

The sixth step of creation: If you have your inheritance, you must not omit the sixth day – realization. What does this mean? It means you must have the spiritual consciousness of it. Never pray for something you’re not willing to become spiritually. You must be willing to become the true child of God yourself. Otherwise what you are praying for will slip through your fingers. You will not have the consciousness to hold it.

Do you give a million dollars to a young boy to go to the ice cream store? No. Because he doesn’t have the consciousness for it. God will fill your bucket no matter how big it is, but you’d better have a spiritual consciousness for the big bucket, or you won’t be able to hold it all. You, yourself, will stop it. You, yourself, will tip it. So the sixth is to become that which you seek to be.

In Ecclesiastes 7:1 the Bible says “A good name is better than precious ointment.” May people see the example you set and live their lives inspired by your nature.

My friends, nothing can stop God. Nothing can stop God’s help through you. I invite you to do a survey of your life this week, naming everything AS good, loving everything and changing your life through the power of God’s help.

In John 14:4 Jesus says to you, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

Ask for anything in the full positive expectant nature, with un-doubting faith of Jesus – and it will be done!

I decree it – in Jesus Christ’s name … Amen

God Bless You!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_____________________________

This time we have in prayer is sacred. Something is going to happen that is beyond mere human consciousness. We’re going to agree and consent to God’s good. There is a higher working here than just the human mind. There is an action of the Divine. The Truth we pray is the Truth of God for you individually.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

During this prayer time you will be quickened by the love of Christ. You will be able to look over your life and bless every experience with God’s love that brings forth good. You will know that the Spirit of the Lord is with you. Your God-given good is assured.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

This moment you are able to dissolve in your mind, and in the minds of all others, any idea that your God-given good can he withheld from you. There is nothing outside of you, person, thing or event, that can keep from you that which the God has for you now.

As your mind expands to God good, vast improvement comes quickly in every phase of your life. Every day, and in every way, through God’s ever present help, things are getting better for you individually. You are entering the best period of your life. The attracting power of God’s love fills your life with satisfying good. As this comes, you are poised, patient and positive. You know that God pours God’s good out upon you.

Your mind is thinking exclusively about God’s possibilities. You know that as you let go of worn out things in your mind, worn out habits and worn out thoughts, there is a new vibrant thinking coming through you, a thinking that pulsates with life, a thinking which is from God’s Mind. You accept that thought now for your life, and for every condition you face in life.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God blesses you with love and peace. You are assured of help in every need. There is a continuous flow of God’s helpful ideas into your human mind. There is a continuous flow of good in your life. God’s Divine ideas come through your human mind and you become an irresistible magnet for wondrous experiences and ever-expanding good.

Good is drawn to you and you are a good receiver. You are receiving God’s good now in every area of your life. You are receiving all the abundance God has for you now. God, in God’s love, pours out God’s abundant good upon you. Your life and your world show forth perfect order now.

Revelations 21:5 says, “Behold, I make all things new.” With new zeal and enthusiasm, you accept God’s promise of good in your life. In Proverbs 28:20 our Bible says, “A faithful human will abound with blessings.” Now you are abounding with God-given blessings.

NOW you are receiving all the good of the Christ.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You are one with the bounty of Christ. Old walls are torn down, and good flows into your life. You are a spiritual heir to God’s ever-present supply. You are blessed.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are able, and ready for the future. You are abundantly prospered.

This, NOW, is a turning point of your life because it is the turning point inside of your mind. You are able to fully trust God’s power. Instead of looking to appearances, you are able to trust in the power of God in your life. God’s good is continually made manifest. God is good. God supplies you now with unlimited opportunities for every need. You are prospered.

In a moment, you are going to rest in the silence. In a moment, you will feel the infilling that is a quiet reassurance that God is at work. In the silence of prayer … ACCEPT

The Christ Light assures you of constant good. The Christ light assures you that your needs are supplied. The Christ Spirit is at work in you and in the circumstances of your life to bring continuous blessing and overflowing good. You have direct access to the rich ideas of God. Your spiritual life is connected and your outer life is filled with plenty.

In the name, in the character and in the intelligence of Jesus Christ, you call forth God’s help. You call forth an ever-expanding help. You decree that you are forever changed by this prayer. You will never live your life in lack or limitation. You name every area of my life as vital, alive and good.

Thank you, God … In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

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GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
27Dec

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – The Path

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - The Path

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration with their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

Here is an example:
First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA)
Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

(Look at the newspaper, point out some current events, and ad-lib and relate to the path of life.)

You have heard it said that life is more than a destination – it is the journey. But also, life is more than just a journey, it is an adventure!

First, life is a journey; the spiritual path is a journey. We were given the idea that some sort of fulfillment was somewhere out there, some place or some time, but it isn’t. The trick is to know that the journey is the prize, and the opportunity. The walker of the path determines whether the path is good or bad.

This is a practical way to experience the presence of God, as you allow God to guide you, and be your moment-by-moment companion on your path.

Mastering living in the NOW, taking time to see and sense the miracles and the adventure in the present.

This should be our daily commitment. We are 100% responsible for healing this sense of separation from God. We experience and enjoy our path by practicing the presence of God.

We all know what the Ten Commandments are; they are found in the Torah and Exodus. We all know the first commandment: “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

The Commandments are the promises of God.

Our whole goal is to have no other god, to have a total awareness of the presence of God, and not to have any sense that there is a separation between us and God – just know the one Presence and the one Power.

Jesus has told us that He explains, opens up, and clarifies the teachings. He says that He does this that His joy may be full in us and that our joy may be fulfilled in us. So we are on the path of joy.

We often think that we have to experience joy ALL the time or somehow we are not on the path of joy. Then we discover that the places where we have the most resistance are the places where we have the opportunity to make the greatest breakthrough, and really experience the presence of God working in our lives, and this gives us a greater awareness that God really is with us.

God isn’t going anywhere. God loves you, unconditionally and God is always going to be here where you are. Some of us have experienced a sense of abandonment (perhaps in our childhood experiences). Many of us have had a feeling of conditional love, perhaps in our families of origin. Perhaps it was a situation in which we may not have been loved unless we did everything right.

We can discover that even when we are feeling resistance or feeling separated, it is right then that we can experience the presence of God moving, acting, and being in our lives. That is very exciting. Perhaps the most important thing on our path is awareness of God.

Knowing God in this moment turns this moment into an adventure!

It’s in the place of most resistance that we often have an opportunity to make the greatest breakthrough and to experience the presence of God in a new and wonderful avenue.

When we find resistance, we don’t like it. We feel bad. We can feel separated from God, and we feel off-kilter. Usually, what we do is try to push against it.

We can do this in a couple of different ways. One is that we can deny that it is there: “I’m not going to think about it;” or “I’ll pretend it isn’t really happening.” The second way is: “I’ll start justifying.” We get into trying to justify the situation that leads us, immediately, into the wonderful opportunity to blame someone else or other circumstances. We can say: “The circumstances are thus-and-so, and if they’d just change I’ll be out of fear;” or “Whatever it is I am into with resistance.”

We get into this either/or not thing, don’t we? We are either in joy or sadness. We are either in fear or we are in love. We are either in the presence of God and aware of it, or we are not anything.

We have come to this world of apparent contrast. We have invented this divide; we created it, but we must see with the single eye toward the standard of God.

There is a natural polarity in life – the evening and the morning of the day. Every aspect of our lives has this polarity. Think about it. There is always this opportunity. We can see that there are the parts that can come together as a spiritual whole, or we can see it as separation, fearful that we will be trapped forever on the wrong side of the divide.

So what we do is we buy into the night of life, thinking that it will last forever and forget that it is polarity, the darkness that holds the promise of a new day! There is only one presence and one power, and it is equally and evenly present. It is God and it is good. There is one God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” Deut. 6:4, KJV.

There are either joy-producing experiences and thoughts or non-joy-producing experiences and thoughts. Your path can be joy-producing or non-joy-producing – it’s up to the walker of the path.

I’d like to read to you from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.”

“And one of the elders of the city said, ‘Speak to us of good and evil.’

“And he answered, ‘Of the good in you, I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

“‘Verily, when good is hungry, it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

“‘You are good when you are one with yourself.

“‘Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.

“‘For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.

“‘And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

“‘You are good when you strive to give of yourself, yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.

“‘For when you strive for gain, you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely, the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full, ever giving of your abundance.’

“‘For to the fruit, giving is a need as receiving is a need to the root.

“‘You are good when you are fully awake in your speech;

“‘Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.

“‘And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

“‘You are good when you walk to your goal firmly with bold steps;

“‘Yet you are not evil when you go further limping.

“‘Even those who limp go not backwards.

“‘But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame deeming it a kindness.

“‘You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good.

“‘You are only loitering and sluggard.

“‘Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

“‘In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness, and that longing is in all of you.

“‘But in some of you, that longing is a current rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillside and the songs of the forest.

“‘And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends, and lingers before it reaches the shore.

“‘But let not him who longs much say to him to longs little, ‘Wherefore are you slow and halting?’

“‘For the truly good ask not the naked, ‘Where is your garment?’ nor the houseless, ‘What has befallen your house?'”

Isn’t that wonderful? We have this opportunity to look at where we are wandering in these strange and amazing ways.

Resistance on your path. What does resistance look like? When you cut to the chase, it really looks like our own fear. It might dress itself up as anger or jealousy, but we all know that it feels bad. Do you know that feeling of feeling bad? We can guarantee that behind that, there is an opportunity to be aware that what we are really feeling is a sense of separation from God.

Those states of mind – anger, jealousy, or whatever it is – are based in fear, and they are really just dressed up ways of looking at the world. Feeling separate from God is like a self-imposed block on our path. We all are in need of being restored, because we want to feel complete.

Look at your life if you find a fear there – fix it before it fixes you!

I believe that they are wake-up calls from our souls saying, “Hey, this is an opportunity where you can experience more of the presence of God. This is where you can unfold your spiritual being-ness in another way.” Jesus was very keen on saying “Wake up! Be awake!” These places of resistance can be seen as wake-up calls from the soul.

Jesus said, “Resist not evil.” The word “evil” in its root meaning means immature. I can say, “Yes, I am in the process of unfolding.” That is so much more gentle than having to do it right today. So, Jesus said, “Resist not evil.” Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him.” [Matthew 5:25, KJV] So, when the fears come up, instead of trying to push them away and deny them, we can be willing to agree with our adversary quickly while we are in the way with it, and ask for God’s help.

Behind everything is a fear that we might lose something, or not get something we want. There is a fear that we can’t have, be, or experience all that we really are.

If you try to push the fear down, it will only get stronger. It is like holding a beach ball underwater. It fights back; it wants to come to the surface, and to the forefront of your life.

First, acknowledge that the fear is there, however it is dressed up. Whatever you want to call it; it is fear.

Second, look at it in the eye and identify it. Identify the place of separation and what the fear is showing you.

Fear is there as our friend, to point us to the fact that we are giving our attention to the opposite. So, we might as well embrace the fear and say, “Friend, show me what it is I need to heal in my sense of separation.”

Third, plunge into it and start telling on it like a little kid does. And once we’ve told the fear that we are going to tell on it (through counseling or by telling really true friends, or support groups), it starts losing its power immediately.

We can know that we are always wrestling with old beliefs. Only old beliefs keep us wrestling with the fear. We’ve been taught to look at this path as “us and them.” Worst of all, we’ve believed this duality of “us and God.” That’s the really big lie in the path we are all on.

The truth is that there is a polarity – there is us and God, but God is always there. It is our part to play to be aware of this Presence and power.

So we can look at these things, talk about them, get them out, find the place of separation, and then look at the old beliefs. There’s a wonderful passage in Acts 13 where Paul meets up with a Roman commander who has bought into the idea that the Holy Spirit is the direct connection with God, and he is, very happily, going his way. Then, the man meets up with a sorcerer. The sorcerer is telling him the old beliefs and that this is wrong. Paul has an interchange with this man where it is necessary to be done with the sorcerer and to counteract the teachings of the sorcerer who is called the “son of the devil.”

We must confront all these old beliefs, look them squarely in the eye, and bring them to the point of truth.

Mental resistance closes the doors and windows of the mind and shuts out the light of Spirit. When we are seeing stuff that is going on that we don’t like and we have this sense of separation, we don’t have to be like the person who stood on the burning deck, looking brave, while the ship sank. He said that any spiritual person would get a bucket brigade going; they would do something about it.

A spiritual person is a person of positive actions.

When we find we have these places of resistance, we should not deny them but we need to invite God in to deal with them. Just as Jesus met the old social beliefs in sorrow and suffering and death, and rose triumphantly out of them, so you have the light and the power to meet the race beliefs in sorrow and lack and failure and death, and to rise out of them, in the true Christ thinking. Your own willingness to follow Jesus and to come into spiritual consciousness and to develop and use the Christ power will determine your growth.

The longest, most difficult way back to the “Father’s house” is the way of experience. The short-cut is in being receptive and obedient to the leading of God in thought, word, and deed; putting God first in your life.

When we renew this faith in us that God can transform these points of fear, we can then go out and not act as if in a sense of pretending, but put into action as steps in the direction of being aware of the presence of God.

We can use our rational minds to know that when we feel badly about ourselves or feel separate, it is an opportunity for a breakthrough. What we are really saying is: “I want to feel the presence of God within me.”

We can have lots of fun with this and open up more avenues of our lives to let this be our own true experience. On the path, when we meet resistance, we can welcome it as an opportunity to transform the old belief system, and have another place where we can allow God to be a very present experience in our lives.

I wish you every opportunity to experience more of the presence of God in more areas of your lives.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION______________________

Let us take this time to relax, and consciously and joyously seek the awareness of God through the silence of prayer – that place where we remember who and what we really are.

Think about God.

Relax a little more, and become aware that the chair is supporting your body. Be aware of your back being supported. Be aware of your feet on the floor. And, if you will, be aware that the place where you sit is supported with deep foundations into this supportive, wonderful earth.

Relax into the presence of God. Be aware that God is supporting you, and your life with deep foundations.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Allow yourself to enjoy remembering that our earth created by God is very supportive; God loves us, unconditionally, and accepts us just as we are. Remember that God’s sun and moon shine on us, no matter how we may feel about ourselves or others.

Let us remember that the trees will have an abundant supply of leaves, all joyously celebrating the presence of life on earth. And they are sharing that abundance with us at any time we want to be aware of it.

We have this wonderful, mothering aspect that loves us and accepts us just as we are, and showers love, joy, and goodness upon us. As we remember that we live in this wonderful, supportive place, let us be aware of the connection we have with all of God’s universe.

Remember how wonderfully ordered God’s universe really is. The planets move in perfect order. The universe supports the entire oneness of this universe. Just as God supports you, and is with you on your path.

In this sense of support, we can truly remember and relax, even more, as we sit here, knowing that we are supported and that we are a part of the wholeness and good of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We are important. We are important enough for God to give all of God’s goodness, intelligence, wisdom, life, and truth, in and through us. We remember that we are all children of God. We remember that our connection is never broken unless we choose to feel separate.

We are children of God.

Ours are the hands and feet of God to produce good on humanity’s path. Ours is the intelligence through which God expresses to bring wisdom into humanity’s thoughts.

We remember that our bodies are always renewed, restored, and regenerated in this wonderful order of God life.

Truly, it is God’s life living us. And we choose to do God’s will by fully living this life.

We remember that God gives us all gifts of life, intelligence, talent, and ability. God gives the gift of joy and expression through us, and this is a very living and real part of this truth.

Rest in the silence of prayer … be even more willing than ever before to be aware of the presence of God life in every cell of your body. Speak words of God’s truth to your body, knowing that it is the light, life, and intelligence of God expressing at all times. God’s love is the truth of every part of your being.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We have no need to fear, for surely God is the love that is expressing in, through, and as us.

We can breathe a sigh of relief to know that we have enough love to give, and that our love is totally worthwhile, for it is God’s love. We have enough love to give, for God’s supply of love is endless.

We have no doubt. And if we find points of doubt or fear, we can quickly remember the truth that God is with us NOW.

We have no need to wonder if we are enough, for surely we are equipped by the all-ness and the is-ness of God.

We know that God gives–without any sense of having to earn it–the gift of God’s presence, the gift of God’s love.

God gives to us so that we can give to others.

We can know we are the gift and we are free to give. We give, freely, of this love to every man, woman, and child on our path.

As we give ourselves permission to love more freely, we can give ourselves permission to live more fully than ever before. We feel this fullness, this light, and this love in every part of our being, as we are, joyously and wondrously, fully aware of our bodies, our presence, as being evidence of the presence of God here and now.

In Jesus Christ’s name, to this truth we do say … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

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Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
20Dec

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – This Year Is Fresh and New

This Year Is Fresh and New

Time Sensitivity: New Year – (Insert Date)

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

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Positive Daily Inspiration.

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There are some wonderful stories from Public Broadcasting about a mythical village Lake Wobegon.

Let me share with you a little bit from Lake Wobegon.

This is a story of Mr. Bowser who worked at the Post Office. He hated his old Chevy, but he still had to drive it because it just wouldn’t break down. It was still running, so, he had to hang onto it. It was all rusted out along the sides and the floorboard was rusted out. He had a piece of three-quarter inch plywood on the floor so he would have somewhere to put his feet. The Chevy’s name was Henry, after his late father. His father taught him never to throw away something if it was still working.

He couldn’t get rid of it, because after fifteen years, even on the coldest mornings, all he would have to do is point at the ignition and it would start. He drove the thing around and hated it for ten of the fifteen years that he owned it.

The heater didn’t work so it was freezing cold inside, but Mr. Bowser was brought up to endure suffering and be cheerful. So, he drove around cheerfully in this horrible car, even though it depressed the life out of him. He hung onto it until a year ago last January.

He was sitting in the Chatterbox Cafe, and someone said to him, “Well, that old Chevy of yours is amazing. It’s quite a starter, isn’t it? What do you ever do with that thing?”

Well, he never did anything. Lack of maintenance seemed to encourage that car. It thrived on neglect. He hadn’t changed the oil in five years, but the car didn’t seem to notice.

They said, “Lordy, we have never seen anything like it. We’ve never had any kind of luck with a Chevy like you have.” In that moment, something seemed to snap inside of Mr. Bowser. He drove that car out to the hill by Haberson’s farm. He stopped, put it into neutral, got out and gave it a push. It ended its life near the second telephone pole it ran into.

He put that car out of its misery.

It was a happy man who walked nearly two miles back to town. He now has a new Chevrolet he calls Betty.

It doesn’t start all the time, and he’s had problems with it. But when it does start, the heater works well. But, better than that, there is still that new car smell. It smells fresh.

You get that fresh feeling when you sit in Betty. That’s all he wanted.

It’s kind of a Christian feeling – a fresh start, a fresh hope for the world, a fresh inspiration of wonder and joy, a spark to touch us and to start us.

How many times have we held on to things we no longer wanted because we were told we had to? We do, you know. Many of us are walking into tomorrow all hunched over, carrying the baggage of many, many years of our past. We stand proudly at the doorway like we would at the doorway of a Holiday Inn, waiting to check into the future. But the problem is we have carried all our old junk with us, all the things we have disliked, our habits and the terrible afflictions we have afflicted on ourselves.

We just don’t know how to un-pry our fingers from the suitcase of the past. So, we carry it along with us, all the time getting heavier and heavier. Pretty soon we can no longer pick it up, so we just drag it along. Wherever we go, we carry that burden. We carry the weight of our world on our shoulders. What a burden it is!

God says to us, “Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy.” We don’t hear that. We have gone through so many empty yesterdays, still carrying all our stuff. All the time it gets heavier and heavier.

Dennis Wheatley, the motivational speaker, tells us what we should do.

#1. We should focus on where we want to go – rather than where we’re coming from. We focus more on where we’ve been than where we’re going. We focus on the mistakes we’ve made in the past, the failures we’ve had, and we think it binds us. That limits us. That puts us in a cage. We hold the keys to the cage, but we stay inside anyway.

#2. Learn from your mistakes – as well as your successes. You can use your mistakes and transcend them. What you are here today to do is find out how to transcend your own biography. We all have a biography. It’s in our mind. We’ve written it from day one.

The minute we came out of mamma’s womb, we decided who and what we are. Then we hold those opinions tightly. Now, possibly, it’s time to rewrite our biography. It may be time to write a new chapter, or even to close the old book and begin a whole new book.

There was a man who was very distressed. He said, “Do you think it is possible for a human being to do a redo?” These were his exact words. He said, “I just don’t think I can. I have made so many mistakes, mistake upon mistake. I don’t even know why I’m alive, because some of my mistakes have been with drugs and alcohol.” He was telling about how much he had taken at one time. It was physically impossible for a human being to live through a poisoning like that. But he did. He said, “Because I lived, I must be here for a purpose.

Do you think it’s possible for a human being to do a redo?”

That was the whole message of Christianity. You get a redo – a start over.

Back in 1974, a man wanted a car. He had a great desire for this car. The reason I’m telling you this story is because the man saw this car the other day. It was a 1974 car – the exact car he wanted. He looked at it and it had big rust holes in it. He thought, “How could I have invested so much time and energy desiring this car?”

There is one thing about a car – you can’t do a redo. Once it starts to rust, it just keeps on rusting. You can patch it and a new rust hole will emerge. It’s what past material objects often do; they decay like Mr. Bowser’s old Chevy Henry. But a human being is always going through a redo phase.

Every cell is continuously being replaced and made new.

The only thing we are carrying, that is old in us, may be the opinion of who we think we are, what we think we can do, how far we think we can succeed, or not. We carry those with us in our luggage. We all carry the baggage of the past, and we are constantly finding baggage and being surprised by it, and hopefully unpacking it.

Unpacking useless baggage in the mind continues daily. It is a going beyond yourself – not to expect the worst in the future, but to expect the best, to know that God is really with you, and you can expect the best. You have the right to expect the best. You are a child of God.

But then, that old voice comes up and says, “Yes, but remember what you’ve done in the past or how you haven’t lived up to being a child of God.” BUT today is a brand-new day of a brand-new year! You can transcend your own biography of who you have been. It’s redo time.

I was listening to a minister of a television church the other day. He was telling a story to the Sunday School children.

Let me tell you the story.

The devil had an auction in which he was auctioning off all of his tools. People were looking around at all the tools, and they came to one tool that said, “Not for Sale.” The devil said, “I can’t sell you that tool, because that one tool is one that I can’t be without.”

The people were fascinated by this. They wanted to know what that one tool was, so they looked on the back of it and saw a label that said, “Tool for Discouragement.”

You see, that is one tool that once it’s inside of us, it’s hard to overcome.

It’s hard for us to remember God. It’s hard for us to do what we want to do because we get discouraged. We think that we just aren’t what we need to be.

Well, I have another tool that WILL really help us. When thinking the down thoughts about ourselves.

Remember who is talking to you. It’s NOT God. It’s your lower mind. You are giving yourself messages. That is the time you need to correct yourself, stop talking and listen to God.

God will never give you a message like that.
God will never talk to you in a discouraging way.
God will never tell you what you can’t do.
God always whispers in your ear and tells you what you can do and accomplish.
God is the great giver of ideas, not generic ideas, but ideas for you on how you can use the idea in your own life. God is all good, endless good inside of you, and love.
You will never hear a negative thought or word from God.

So, when you pray, if you’re beginning to get negative messages, that is the human part of you that should be quiet.

Listen to the all-positive voice of God.

Sometimes, as we carry our luggage of the past into tomorrow, we carry it for a reason.

Many people might prefer known hells to unknown heavens.

Let me tell you a true story. There was a man some years ago who a prisoner of war. It was decided to do a psychological study on him. So, he was offered two options.

The first option was that he could have a firing squad. They took him into the room and showed him where the men stood with the rifles and where he would stand against the wall. They told him about the command and about the bullets that would destroy his body.

His second option was a closed door. They told him he could walk through the door. He asked them what was through the door and the leader said, “Unknown hells.” The man then chose the firing squad. He died. Through the door was freedom.

It’s a true story. Not only is it true of the gentleman whose story is told; it is true in our lives. So many times we stay in a hellish existence, a hellish habit or a hellish frame of mind – because through the door are unknown hells (or so we think). How much better it would be if we could walk towards that door and say, “Dear God, I’m going in a new direction and I’m frightened. But I’m going to walk with You, God. I know that You are walking before me and I know You are going to bring unbelievable good to me and my life.

I’m going to walk with You and I’m going to believe with a deep, deep faith.” Some say that they have failed so many times before.

Let me tell you, if you don’t at first succeed, you’re running about average. It’s true. Occasional failure is the price of improvement. If you were to start a career of being a great painter, you would have several paintings that would not be up to the quality that you would want. But that would lead you to the direction of the masterpiece. Everything you have done leads you to the masterpiece that is you. Thank God for your failures because they will lead you in the direction of success.

The story of Abraham Lincoln:
He failed in business at 22 years of age.
When he was 23, he ran for the legislature and was defeated.
When he was 24, he failed at business and went bankrupt.
When he was 25, he was elected to the legislature.
When he was 26, his sweetheart died.
This so destroyed him that at 27, he had a nervous breakdown.
When he was 29, he ran for Speaker and was defeated.
When he was 31, he ran for Elector and was defeated.
When he was 34, he ran for Congress and was defeated.
When he was 37, he was elected to Congress.
When he was 39, he ran for re-election to Congress and was defeated.
When he was 46, he ran for the Senate and was defeated.
When he was 47, he ran for Vice President and was defeated.
When he was 49, he ran for the Senate and was defeated.
And when he was 51, he was elected President of the United States.

It’s a good story, because no one would have blamed him if he had given up at any one of those times.

Of course, if he had, you would never have heard his name. There are tens of millions of people whose names you’ve never heard because they had given up TOO SOON.

A wonderful story is told of a minister who had a dream. In it he had a sledgehammer and every day he cracked it against a huge granite monument. Finally, he gave up. He said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m not making any difference.”

Then he heard a voice that said, “Hit it one more time.” With the next blow, the rock cracked in half.

That’s the way life is. Yes, we’ve all had many failures, but we have to keep on keeping on. The only time we get discouraged is when we think we are doing it alone and we don’t know how we’re going to go any further. We don’t know how we can overcome the great problems that are facing us.

It’s that moment we need to hold the hand of God and say, “I can’t do it alone. I am walking with You.

Take me one extra step.” After that step we ask God to take us another step. That way we can go on and get our energy back. We then have the strength not only to endure, but to transform our lives.

You have that God-given strength inside of you. There is not one person here who doesn’t have that connectedness with God. Whether you believe it or not, you now have it. Every once in a while, everyone needs a pep talk to remind us of the power and the strength of God.

Let me tell you, within the lower human mind we have a prison that imprisons us. It forgets about the great unlocker of the door, the great power and strength of God that will flow through at any moment.

It doesn’t matter where you hear the pep talk, either. There is a wonderful story about Notre Dame.

In 1924 Knute Rockney had laryngitis so bad that he couldn’t speak a word. Yet, he had to give a pep talk to his players. So, he decided that he would take his team to a room that was next to the room where the opposing team was. Their coach was one of the best pep-talkers in the world. He told his players that he couldn’t talk, but he told them to listen to the other coach’s message because it was true for them, too. After this, they went on to win the game.

Well, I invite you to listen to other ministers of other religions because the pep talk is the same.

Sometimes you have to change some words to make it vital and alive for you, but the Truth is the same about an all-present, good God that is available to you right where you are, a God that will make your moments so very special right now and make tomorrow better than ever before.

We often say that with the problems we’re experiencing we’re not sure if life is worth living today. We wish we could go back to the good old days. We might feel that the weight of our problems is so great, and the weight of future problems is so great; we don’t know how we’re ever going to overcome them.

Well, in your present mind you can’t. It takes a greater Mind to overcome these problems. That’s one of the reasons we have problems. Problems are opportunities for us to expand our limited thinking to the limitless Mind of God.

God is bigger than any of your problems. No matter what you’re facing, GOD IS BIGGER.

God can figure out a way when to your human mind there seems to be no way. God can work out a solution, too, but you have to do your part. You have to consent and allow that Mind of God to work through your mind. Then you have to go out and work as God directs.

Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Truly it is. You go to God first, and then you work and work and work as He directs. By holding the hand of God, you can overcome anything.

Edgar Allen Poe once said, “Those who dream by day are aware of many things that escape those who only dream at night.”

Become a daydreamer, but not in your human mind. Become a daydreamer who realizes there is no lack but a lack of faith in God. There is no sickness in the soul, but a sense of separation from God.

Become the kind of dreamer who knows that you can go beyond where you have been, where you think you’re going and become something great for humanity and for yourself.

Some people die at the age of 21, but they’re not buried until they’re 91. Don’t you be that way.

Have a “past thinking” funeral in your life. Bury the words “I can’t” and “but.” The word “but” usually has a chain attached to it, and this chain is attached to your past, your baggage.

With God, you can go beyond even your best yesterdays. With God, you can have the greatest gift of all, and that is a fresh start.

I pray that each one of you gets a fresh start in the best tomorrows of your life.

It’s a fresh and new time!

God Bless You! Happy New Year!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_________________________

Rest in the silence of prayer.

Feel the silence of God’s peace enfold your very being. Enfold yourself in the silence that is God’s strength. There are two kinds of strength: strength to endure, and strength to overcome. We pray for strength, for the strength to see us through every experience during the grandest days of our lives in (Insert the New Year).

We see ourselves being supported and upheld by God. We are strengthened, sustained and carried through any difficulty by the very strength of our faith in God and our certainty that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble in (Insert the New Year).

I pray today for you to have God-given strength. I pray for God’s strength to manifest through you. I pray for a new strength to come forth inside of you, strengthening every cell of your physical being and your mind, a strength that knows not to look to outer appearances but holds on firmly to the power of God.

(Insert the New Year) is the year of our Lord.

Rest in the silence of prayer.

God is your strength. Through God, your enthusiasm for life is renewed. You are happy.

You are peaceful. You are strong. Through God, you have an enthusiasm as never before, an enthusiasm based on hope and the firm foundation that you are one with God.

In God you live and move and have your being all of (Insert the New Year).

You know that your life can be renewed. It is being renewed now. Every area of your life is seeing the light of day. The light of God is shining in and through it. It is an attitude that comes to you now, an attitude that allows you the privilege of being happy.

You are happy, not because of outer things, but because of what God is doing inside of you in (Insert the New Year).

You have a strength that brings peace, a peace that does not rely on outer conditions or worldly events, but a peace that is from the silence within you. You are strong. You stand upright and walk into the face of adversity because you know you are not alone. You know you are going to overcome anything that is in the outer.

You are going to endure in (Insert the New Year) with God’s direct help and guidance.

Rest now in the silence. In the silence of prayer.

To endure is worthy. It is a mark of character. The enduring quality of the soul is to be praised. But we do not let the word endure be the keynote of our thoughts. Instead, we think of tomorrow, not as a time to endure, but as a time of spiritual transformation.

We think of the word transform.

We see in our lives those things that are negative as transitory. Only God is real and only God is enduring. We know that God’s transforming power can bring a miracle of change, a miracle of good, anywhere, anytime in any circumstance in (Insert the New Year).

(Silence)

We know that the transforming power of God comes to uplift and is the way to our greater strength. We have the strength to know and believe that there is nothing hopeless or incapable of change in our lives. We have the strength to wait on God and to believe in God’s power as present. This Power is transforming and translating every experience into something new and wonderful in God’s day multiplied by 365 in (Insert the New Year).

“They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.”

Here is your strength – not just to endure, but to soar. You now have the secret of soaring strength – to wait on the Lord.

We pray. We turn to the Presence of God with us, knowing that God is our strength, our light, our joy, and our peace. We wait upon the Lord, and we are given, not just the strength to endure, but a new surge of life and energy to enter our tomorrows, a strength from the Infinite, a strength that lifts up and gives us wings of faith, a strength that fills us with enthusiasm, abundant life, and exhilarating joy in (Insert the New Year).

Rest in the silence of prayer.

God is your strength. Through God, your enthusiasm for life is renewed. You are happy, peaceful and strong. You are strong in the Lord and in the power of God’s might. You have the strength to endure. You have the strength to overcome. You have the strength for joy and for happiness. You have the strength to realize the power of Spirit.

Through you, God transforms your very being and your very own world in the great year of our Lord (Insert the New Year).

In Jesus Christ’s name we so dedicate ourselves for the best tomorrows of our life in (Insert the New Year)!

Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
13Dec

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Christmas

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Christmas

Time Sensitivity: Sunday Before Christmas, Or special Christmas service, or Sunday Morning after.

NOTE: This is a light Christmas lesson aimed at a whole family experience. It works well advertised to draw in visitors.

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration with their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

Here is an example: First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA)
Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

(Deliver in joyous, childlike playful way.) Christmas is a time of hope and positive expectation.

I ask you to think about the most important Christmas that you remember from your childhood. For many of you, the most important memory will be about the best Christmas gift that you ever received in your entire life, a Christmas gift which you received from your parents or some relative who really sacrificed to get a special gift for you. Even though outer conditions were difficult, they saved to get you the gift you wanted for Christmas. As I’m talking, remember that Christmas you had that was so special.

“A Christmas Story” is a story that was written by Jean Shepherd about his childhood. The story takes place in a fictional mill town called Holman, Indiana. The book he wrote was called In God We Trust, All Others Pay cash. It’s become a classic. There is also the classic movie that has been based on this book. It is entitled “A Christmas Story.”

Know that this is a story, not of one little boy in Holman, Indiana, but a story inside all of us; a story of how we can go beyond our outer conditions. It takes place in 1937, and there was a great depression that was sweeping the country. In fact, during that year, the Depression was at its height in Holman, Indiana. But this is not a story of tragedy, rather a story of how people lived with hope and peace in their hearts despite any hardships they faced. In this story the main character goes back to Holman, Indiana and looks upon Cleveland Street, where he lived, he remembers not those hardships, but remembers the message of hope and peace his parents and family life brought him while he was there.

True religion is overcoming outer conditions through inner strength. God does not serve us when placed high on a pedestal. Nor do we serve God by placing God there. We serve God by daily living in God’s ways and by trying to think the way that God would think about ourselves, and about other people.

As you listen to this story, I’d like you to ask yourself a true question of the Advent season: How are we living in the HOPE of God? How are we living in the PEACE of God? How are we expressing the LOVE of God? How are we expressing the JOY of God? Are these just candles on an Advent wreath or are we truly bringing these godly powers into our lives and living it? Yes, the light of these gifts can be created in your life, no matter what is happening in your life. I tell you; you can go above and beyond any outer challenge and problem that is happening.

Let me tell you, first, about Holman, Indiana. It is located in the extreme northwestern corner of the state. The state line ends abruptly with the icy waters of the queen of the Great Lakes – Lake Michigan. It clings to Chicago like a barnacle cling to the bottom of a steamer. From time to time, the echoes of the outside world come into Holman, but they have little effect on the people there.

Holman’s life is a mill town existence. It is a life of furnaces that go 24 hours a day, converters you can hear in the middle of the night, and petroleum distillation plants that you can smell 24 hours a day. Social life in Holman is found in the bowling halls and the union halls, beer halls, dance and pool parlors. This town is in an area of sandy, rolling country. It is more frozen and rigid in the winter by the gales that get their start around the Arctic Circle and come over the icy waters of Lake Michigan and end up in Holman, Indiana.

The trains thunder through Holman, and present a mystery to every child who lives there. They think about the trains that are all going somewhere else, and they wish they could be on them. The sky at night is always lit by the eternal flames of the open hearths and the blast furnaces. Nothing much has changed in Holman, Indiana, least of all the people who live there.

As this man goes back to Holman, Indiana, he finds himself on Cleveland Street and he is remembering. In what seemed like just a few minutes, a thousand little memories pop into his head. First, he remembered what he looked like as a little boy. They called him Ralphie. His most vivid memories were about that special Christmas in 1937.

He remembered: Christmas was coming. A Glorious Christmas on which the entire “kid-year” revolved. Downtown Holman, Indiana, was a bustle with Christmas activity.

The main feature in Holman, Indiana, was Higby’s corner window. It was traditionally a high-water mark of the pre-Christmas season. First niters packed earmuff to earmuff. They jostled in wonderment before a golden, twinkling display of mechanized, electronic joy. Inside the window was the holy grail of Christmas gifts.

There was something in this window that Ralphie wanted so much that he got so close to the window that his nose was smashed down against the glass. It was a Red Rider 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in its stock and a thing that tells time.

For weeks, Ralphie had been screaming to get his mitts on one of these fearsome steel beauties. His fevered brain seethed with the effort of trying to come up with the infinitely subtle suggestions necessary to plant the Red Rider air rifle indelibly into his parents’ subconscious for that Christmas.

For his first attempt to do this, he took a huge ad for the Red Rider and put it into the “LOOK” magazine that had just come to the house. He placed it in the middle of an article about Clark Gable and Loretta Young. He knew that his parents would see that ad. But they never commented on it.

Next, he was sitting at the kitchen table and his mother said, “Well, Ralphie, what would you like for Christmas?” Without thinking, he blurted out, “I want the Red Rider BB gun.’ His mother just shook her head and said, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

He knew that was strike one.

His father was at the table. He was always entering contests. (This was the hope of getting beyond the Depression.) He always entered contests in hope of that serendipity, something special and unexpected coming into his life. Ralphie’s little brother Randy was at the table, too. As most little brothers, Randy wouldn’t eat. The story says he hadn’t eaten voluntarily in over three years. His mother would constantly tell him there were starving people in China.

Preparing to go to school in Holman, Indiana, was like preparing for extended deep sea diving. You had so many clothes on that your arms stuck out at your sides and you couldn’t even move. You looked more like a dressed “T” than a person. Your whole face was covered, so you could hardly see. He remembers his elementary school, (Warren G. Harding Elementary School). He was in the third grade and his teacher was Mrs. Shields.

He remembered one particular time when his friend Flick went outside during recess. Flick was bragging that he knew a lot about things that the other kids didn’t know about. For instance, he said that if you stick out your tongue and put it on a metal light pole, you will freeze instantly to the pole and you wouldn’t be able to move. Well, the kids turned the tables on Flick. One kid said, “Flick, I triple-dog dare you to do it.” Well, this is a dare that a man just could not step away from. So Flick arched his back, stuck his tongue out and put it against the metal pole. Instantly, his tongue froze to the metal pole.

The bell rang, recess was over. The kids didn’t know what to do, so they went back into the classroom. The teacher looked around and said, ‘Where’s Flick?” Everybody just shrugged their shoulders. Finally, one little girl shyly points outside. The teacher looks outside and there is Flick, screaming with his tongue stuck to the pole.

That afternoon Flick was back in the classroom, after the fire department rescued him. The teacher decided she would have the kids write a theme. The subject was “What I Want for Christmas.” Ralphie knew that he was up at bat again. This time, he wrote in eloquent terms about the Red Rider BB gun. He turned it in, knowing that he would get the highest grade in the class. About a week later, he got his theme back and he received a C- for it. Down at the bottom of the paper the teacher wrote: ‘You’ll shoot your eye out.”

This was strike number two.

In December 1937, the highest thing in a kid’s life happened on a Tuesday evening at 6:45pm. Little Orphan Annie was on the radio, brought to the listening audience by rich, chocolaty Ovaltine. Now, Ralphie has spent months drinking Ovaltine to get a secret seal to send into Orphan Annie so he could have a decoder ring. At the end of every broadcast, there was a special code given out for only those who had the decoder ring. 11-Y-36-N-27 … The code went on and on.

This night was a special night because Ralphie had received his decoder ring that afternoon. He was quickly writing down the secret message as it was broadcast. It was so important, (according to Ralphie), that the nation’s welfare depended on his deciphering the message.

He went upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom and slowly deciphered the code. It was one of the biggest disappointments in his life when he looked down and saw what the message was after it was decoded. It said, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

But this is quickly forgotten as he goes downstairs and hears his father screaming, “I won! I won! I won a major award.” The award came later that evening. It was the most hideous lamp you have ever seen. But it was the Depression, and it was serendipity for that family. It didn’t matter how hideous it was it came, it was won, it was unexpected, and it was a blessing to their lives.

The father had one major problem–that was with one of the neighbors. The big problem was that the Bumpuses were, as the family called them “hillbillies,” and they had 27 hound dogs. These dogs would ignore every human being on earth except Ralphie’s father. The minute he drove into the driveway, the hounds would be around him, barking and jumping and becoming a nuisance to him.

That night, Ralphie and his family went downtown to the Christmas Emporium of the Midwest to choose a Christmas tree. There were over 300 trees to choose from. He went in and got the biggest tree that he could possibly get. After they got it home, every time they tried to plug in the lights on it, the fuses would go out.

The family sang Jingle Bells, and it was a time that superseded anything that was happening outside with the economy in our country, it superseded the Depression. It superseded the hardship the family was going through. They had each other and with each other they could create hope, peace, love and joy.

The next day they went downtown to the Christmas Parade. At the end of the parade Santa Claus officially came into town. Santa got off the float and went into Higby’s. He sat upon a mountain where the line formed to see Santa. Ralphie was at the end of the line. He remembers that the line stretched all the way back to Terre Haute.

He finally got up to Santa, and he realized that this was his last chance. He sat on Santa’s lap and said, “I want the Red Rider BB gun.” Santa looked down at him and said, ‘You’ll shoot your eye out.”

Christmas finally came. Snow was falling. Santa had come. Traditionally, the first gift to be opened was the presents from Aunt Clara. Aunt Clara always sent Ralphie something pink. She labored under the delusion that Ralphie was a girl. This year, it was the worst ever. It was a set bunny pajamas – solid pink with big floppy ears and complete with fluffy tail and feet.

All the gifts were opened. Everyone sat in the living room, filled with joy. The father said, “Well, Ralphie, did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?”

Ralphie said, “Well, almost.”

The father said, “Well, there’s always next year.” Then the father looked and said, “Wait a minute. What is “that” behind the tree?” Ralphie looked up and his eyes got big. He went over and got the long box and tore open the paper.

Inside, unknown to his mother, was the Red Rider RB gun.

The father just shrugged his shoulders and said to the mother, “Well, I had one when I was eight.” Ralphie went outside and put the tin target up. He aimed the air rifle and pulled the trigger. The BB hit the tin target and the BB was deflected back and hit Ralphie right under his eye. His glasses went off into the snow and were eventually broken.

Meanwhile, Ralphie’s father was in the kitchen, trying to steal some of the turkey. Mothers are strange creatures. They know from 300 yards what the men are doing in the house. She shouts down from upstairs, “You stay away from that turkey!” Right away, he goes into the living room and sits down with his newspaper. Everything is right with the world. He’s in his favorite easy chair reading his newspaper, smelling his favorite dish, and he hears a sound. He puts down his newspaper and goes into the kitchen. Someone has left the door open and the Bumpuses hounds are in the kitchen and they have devoured the turkey.

The family went out to eat in the only restaurant open in town–The Chop Suey Palace. He remembers this, too, as his favorite Christmas meal because Peking Turkey is duck and they leave the head on it. During the whole meal it was smiling back at Ralphie.

Soon it was Christmas night. All the lights were off. The two boys are in bed sound asleep. Randy is holding his favorite gift and Ralphie is holding his Red Rider BB gun.

Life is real. Sometimes life is tough. Sometimes there are conditions like a depression that and we have to overcome that. Inside of each one of us we are blessed by God with the power to do just that.

Sometimes there are conditions of ill health, or there are conditions that make us feel that we don’t want to celebrate Christmas in our lives, but we are given the power of God’s hope to go beyond this.

I often think about Jesus. We think about Jesus as an adult, but at another time Jesus was an eight-year-old boy. He had a mom and a dad. Mary would have been around 21 years of age and Joseph would have been in his early forties. Think about their home life. It must have been good because He often referred to becoming like a little child again; to see life with eyes of hope and wonderment. How much wonder this Child must have had about the future.

The Bible doesn’t talk much about this, but this is what religion really is. It is daily life. It is how we’re living our life today. Jesus was born and He brought hope, peace of mind, love, and enjoyment into the daily world. Jesus’ teachings brought these ultimate Christmas gifts to you. When you follow His teachings, you can have new hope today in your daily life, no matter what is going on.

Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. When we dwell on His teachings and pray in His manner, we become peaceful. We truly have the Prince of Peace inside of us. As you look back on your life and smile about some of the Christmases that have happened in your life, you don’t remember the gifts as much as the peaceful memories you’ve had. They are something that you wouldn’t exchange for all the money or all the gifts in the world.

In Luke 1:79, before the birth of Jesus Christ, it says: “Jesus is coming to guide our feet into the way of peace.” After the birth, in Luke 2:14 the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’

Those who are watching the spiritual realm know that still greater changes are going on there. Often human-made creeds and dogmas are skeletons in their closets which they do not care to talk about.

In politics and in government the same upheavals are at work. The rights of men and women are no longer theories. They are about to become real conditions in the world of affairs. So, from any plane of observation that may be chosen, we can assert with conviction that the time is here. Something is happening.

All along the line are evidence of the birth of the Prince of Peace. A higher state of consciousness is bursting full-blown upon the whole race. It is everywhere. Those who are most open to its influx are being rewarded. The Power is abroad in the earth, and it calls to men, women and nations to come up higher.

All this is a prelude to a new state of consciousness for the whole of humankind. It is the beginning of the visible reign of the Christ. Every state of consciousness was first planted as a seed idea by some individual. So, Jesus planted the seed thoughts that are now springing up in so many forms and shapes.

It was He who went into all domains of thought and formulated ideas that have waited for people who could comprehend and utilize them. We are that people. The dawn of the new birth is in our keeping. We possess the keys to the gates of the New Jerusalem.

It should not be assumed that this refers to any sect or class. It refers to all people of this great time who are open to its spiritual understanding. The keys are presented to those who come into a perception of true hope, peace, love, and joy.

This is the key that is being entrusted to many in this great day of the Lord. But the possession of the key is not all. A key is FOR USE.

Do not just sit in church learning about God. Put God into your daily life. We may all know the way in which the mind formulates states of consciousness and all about our relation to God. But unless we have made a change in our consciousness and realize in the presence of God in our minds, we are not using the Christmas gifts of the keys.

Theory is one thing, practice is another.”

Where do you turn the key? You turn it in your daily life today. You turn the key to bring those God attributes of hope, peace, love, and joy into your life. That’s when it becomes real to you. That’s when it becomes magic in your life and in the lives of those around you.

This story tells us about the God-given gift of togetherness. It is more powerful than anything in the outer world. It tells us the story of rekindling our hope, our peace, our love for each other, and our joy like a child, to bring the holiday into full manifestation in our life. Then it tells us that we make our own Christmas wherever we go.

Christmas is not with material presents, but with the spiritual presence of God.

I pray that you do so now. Go with God and overcome conditions. Go with God and overcome challenges and problems.

Hope with God and make Christmas real today.

God Bless You!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_______________________

In Romans 8:28 it says, “In everything God works for good for those who love God.” A mighty assurance is contained in these words.

You love God and I love God. We rely upon God’s power to adjust and regulate all things. We realize that Divine adjustment by God is mighty to bring about complete change in all the circumstances of our lives, and to establish perfect order.

Right now, we begin to set our world in order by reforming our thoughts. Let us invoke the Divine wisdom of God to guide our thinking and let us lay hold of and make manifest the great thoughts of God; the ideas that point the way by which we are to establish God’s kingdom.

In this moment, I invite you to discover God within the peace of the silence of prayer.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God is with us right now. God’s thoughts are accessible to us. God is your guide: your helper in EVERY task you are given to do. God helps you to bring order out of every seemingly perplexing situation that confronts you. When you look to God, your mind is quickened to see the way to take. Your faith is quickened to see how things are working together for good.

New and confusing conditions may loom before you, but you are now undisturbed by them. God gives you the assurance that all is well. You need only to be receptive to God’s wise counsel, obey it unquestioningly and let Divine order work through you. If you are confused as to what you should do, you need not contend with yourself or others.

Declare silently in prayer, that God’s wisdom is your guide and God’s law of harmony is the ruling principle of your life.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Steadfast and strong, unaffected by outer appearances of disharmony, you shall be equal to every emergency when you know that God is all-powerful and that God is the directive power within God’s Creation. You allow the hope of God to become your hope. You allow the peace of God to become your peace. You allow the love of God to become your love. You allow the joy of God to become your joy.

And you bring that into manifestation now in this time of prayer.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God is the creator of all things. And all things love their Creator. They seek to work together for good to all who love God. We place our trust totally in God. We depend on God for help in every situation. No matter what our needs might be, God is with us, and is able to meet them fully, wisely and lovingly. God is our light. God is our strength. God is our perfect help. In trusting God, we have at our call the greatest power that is available; a power that is instant, constant and unfailing.

We are confident because we know we are not alone. God is with us. We are capable because we know that we do not rely on ourselves alone but we rely upon God working with us. We are successful because God is always successful. We work with God and God flows through our minds and our bodies. Every movement is directed by the Divine.

We have a knowing, in prayer, that God is working through us. And God working through us is equal to every demand.

No emergency of life can be greater than the power of God in us to cope with it.

THROUGH THE PRESENCE AND THE POWER OF GOD, DIVINE ORDER IS NOW ESTABLISHED IN YOU. PEACE AND STABILITY ARE MANIFEST IN YOUR WORLD.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

These Godly thoughts are accepted inside our human minds. These Divine thoughts are acted upon this week, every day and every moment during our Christmas season.

In the nature of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, we say Amen.

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Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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06Dec

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Changing Bad Directions In Our Lives

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Changing Bad Directions In Our Lives

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration with their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

Here is an example:

First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA)
Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

It seems like there is nothing more difficult for a human being than to stop a bad habit.

One of Aesop’s Fables tells us: “A well-to-do man came to live next door to a tanner’s yard. Unable to endure the foul smell, he kept urging the tanner to move somewhere else. But the tanner always put him off, saying that he would move a little later on. This happened so often that, in time, the man got used to the smell. As a matter of fact, he started to like the smell and he stopped worrying his neighbor.

This fable teaches us that what bothers us greatly, in the beginning, over time is something we get used to even make a friend with. We walk down the path with it. It is a gradual thing.

There were two frogs and two kettles. One of the kettles had a fire underneath it and the water was boiling. One frog jumps into the kettle with boiling water. Instantly, he yells, “This hurts!” He jumps out of the kettle to safety. The other frog jumps in the other kettle that is not over an open flame. The flame is not turned on at all. The water is lukewarm. The frog thinks this is nice and begins to take a swim. The frog is in the kettle with a big smile on his face. He is doing the backstroke. he is having fun; and everything is perfect in that frog’s life. But he does not realize that in a little while, the cook comes in and turns on the flame underneath the kettle he is swimming in. The water gradually heats up. All the time, he keeps swimming. It is so gradual that he doesn’t realize there has been a big change in his life. He is a bit uncomfortable, but he does not realize that it is so uncomfortable he should jump out of the pot. He keeps swimming, finally meeting his demise.

Break bad habits before they break you.

A habit is a routine, a custom, a practice, and a chronic condition of doing something, over and over again.

It is something constant, persistent, and fixed. We may find ourselves going down the wrong road. We say to ourselves we are going down the wrong road, yet we look down at our feet and they are still moving and we continue in the same fixed direction. There is only one thing that can break our habits. It is with the help higher than our own power.

God can, working within the human being …

overcome a habit a human being has gotten used to,

overcome a habit a human being has said OK to,

agreed to,

a habit that seemingly cannot be stopped.

With God, all things are possible.

So often, when we are walking down a road in a certain direction, we do not even know why we started the habit in the first place. But here we are, we are on that road, and we seem to be trapped there. We seem to be in a rut and we cannot pull ourselves out of the rut. Why do we do it? Why do we keep on going.

There is a true story about Russia in the days of the Czars. In a part of St. Petersburg’s winter palace, there was a beautiful lawn. On that lawn was a bench. Next to the bench were two guards. Every three hours, the guards were changed. No one knew why.

One day, an ambitious young lieutenant was put in charge of the Palace Guard. He started wondering and asking questions. In the end, he found a cobwebbed little room and in the room, a little old man. He asked the man about the history since he was the Palace historian.

“Yes,” the old man replied, “I remember. During the reign of Peter, the Great, 200 years ago, the bench got a fresh coat of paint. The Czar was afraid the ladies-in-waiting might get paint on their dresses and ordered one guard to watch the bench. The order was never rescinded. Then, in 1908, all the guards of the Palace were doubled for fear of a revolution. So, the bench has had two guards ever since.”

When we walk down our road with our habit, we have to ask ourselves WHY. How did I get in this place and how did I start going in this direction? Is it still necessary for your life today? Do you have to go in this fixed direction? When we ask ourselves these questions about our habits, usually the answer will be “no” to our human self, but we find our feet are still walking in the same direction.

Fabre tells the story of the time he got a procession of caterpillars started around the rim of a big palm vase. A caterpillar leaves a trail of silk behind it, which acts as a lifeline to guide it back to the nest from the grazing grounds. But Fabre cut this line where it reached the rim. The caterpillars, completing the circle of the rim of the vase and guided by the lifeline they had left behind, started around again.

All day long, they marched around and around, a solid ring of caterpillars, each with its head to the tail of the one who went before.

Fabre says: “Far into the night, they still journeyed on, slaves to their lifeline and bound to follow the one ahead. The next day, they resumed their patient march. The third, the fourth, and the fifth day and night, they went. The sixth night, the seventh day, the seventh night, and still the go-around, which was far from merry, kept on, with its marchers footsore and weary.”

Perhaps you can relate to that because walking down the path of your habit, whatever it is, you are footsore and weary. You look down at your feet and think if I could only stop this. I’ve tried so many times to stop and yet my feet keep moving in a direction that I know is breaking me.

Today is our day to go to God and seek answers and know we have God’s help.

We can break those habits before they break us.

God is the answer. I know God is your answer and God will work in this moment and this day.

There is a tendency within the human being, which keeps us repeating mistakes, over and over.

This story was reported by UPI. In Oldham, England, a magistrate sentenced Junior Burton, 23, to a month in jail because he stole a car so he could get to court in time to face car theft charges. I would have loved to have been there. Can you see this judge looking at this man? He had a habit and he could not break it.

In Bolivia, Jose Silva had an argument with a Siriono Indian. The Indian took his bow and arrow and shot a four-foot arrow into Silva’s face. He was very shocked at first. He wanted the arrow taken out, immediately, but he couldn’t get to a doctor for months. When he finally got to a doctor, the physician agreed to remove the arrow.

Jose said, “Is it going to hurt?”

The doctor said, “Yes, it is probably going to hurt when we remove the arrow.”

Jose said, “All my life I have tried to be something special and never was special. Now people look at me, wherever we go, and I kind of like the arrow in my head.”

So, for 11 more years, Jose Silva lived with a four-foot arrow in his head. It is amazing what a human being can get used to. We think it is absurd, yet we know people who have gotten used to living with habits more destructive than an arrow.

A bad habit is a thing inside the human being that says I cannot stop, even though I know it is hurting me.

There was a patient who was put away in a mental hospital because he had a habit. They tried to control his habit. He had a habit of eating everything in sight. He could not stop. It got to the point where he liked it.

One day, years later, after it was forgotten why he was put in the mental hospital, the 38-year-old man was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York City and operated on. From his stomach, they removed 500 coins and metal objects. They removed 300 coins from his stomach without any damage to the esophagus or intestinal tract, including quarters, dimes, and subway tokens. The found broken thermometers, can openers, knives, forks, spoons, nuts, bolts, chains, and even car keys.

When the man was asked about this, he said, “You know, I am not really crazy. It’s just that, as a child, I got into the habit of swallowing coins and I have never been able to give it up.”

A 31-year-old nurse in Australia started to chew on paper as a child. At 31, this nurse had gotten into quite a habit and was hospitalized for it. The woman’s usual diet in a day was 5 to 10 Kleenex, half a page of newspaper, and for variety, an occasional exercise book page.

When we have a habit, we often find ourselves in a jail. When we hear a talk like this, we are told of a way out; but many times, if we are really honest, we do not want a way out. This has been proven in human nature, over and over again.

Years ago, when the Bastille was about to be destroyed, a prisoner was brought out, who had been lying in one of the gloomy cells for a long time. Instead of joyfully welcoming freedom when he was brought out into the sunshine, he said he had gotten used to his dungeon. When he was told he could not go back because it was being torn down, he got on his knees and pleaded for them to let him go back and die in his dungeon. He had gotten used to it and it was his home.

Human nature can get used to anything. We need something higher than ourselves to shake it out of us.

Hebrews 12:26-29. ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase, ‘yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken – that is, created things – so what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed, our God is a consuming fire.”

This is saying God can shake out of us what we do not have the power to shake out of us. By giving God our consent to our habit being removed, God can shake it up and get it out, and what will remain is the perfection of God. Then it talks about something that appears all through the Bible. It talks about God’s all-consuming fire. This is cleansing and purifying, a fire of transmutation, actually using the negative you have had in your life as fuel for your positive new direction in future days.

I want to share a remarkable story with you about C.S. Lewis. It is found in “The Great Divorce.” It is about a little red lizard a certain ghost carries on his shoulder. The lizard twitches its tail and whispers continually to the ghost. It says to the ghost, “You ought to do this; you ought to do that; you ought to go down this way even if it is not for your good. Do it anyway.” The little lizard is constantly urging him to do things that are bad for the ghost.

All the time, the ghost is telling the lizard, “Be quiet. Be quiet; I don’t want to talk to you, right now. Be quiet.”

Finally, there is a bright and shining presence that appears in front of the ghost and tells him of the troublesome baggage he is carrying. He says, “Do you want me to remove the lizard, once and for all?” The ghost refuses. He understands that to quiet the beast, it is necessary to kill it.

Then the ghost begins to rationalize. He thinks perhaps the lizard need not die, but instead, can be trained, suppressed, put to sleep, or gotten rid of, gradually. The presence responds that the gradual approach is useless in dealing with such beasts – it must be all, or nothing.

Finally, with the ghost’s permission, the presence twists the lizard away from him, breaking its back as he flings it to the ground. Then, an amazing thing takes place. Instead of a ghost, there is now a perfect man. At the same moment, the lizard becomes an incredibly beautiful silver and gold stallion, full of beauty and power. Then the man leaps onto the great horse and they ride together into the morning, as one.

How many times have you seen people with habits who have gotten rid of those habits and because of it, turned around their entire life? I know many people in Alcoholics Anonymous that way. They became better people than they were before they started to drink, because they were turned in a different direction to spirituality. They got on the old beast that used to be there and they mastered it. It no longer affected their lives. They used it in the best way they possibly could.

It has to be all or nothing. Recently, in a rehab for alcoholics, I met a man who told me an all-too-familiar story. For seven years, he had remained sober. He had broken his habit. He had not taken one drink during this time. Then, one night, he was walking home with a friend from work. The friend suggested they stop for a beer. When he went in with his friend, he intended to get a soft drink, but when he saw the beer, he decided one would not hurt him. After all, he had gone a full seven years without a drink. It was safe now, he reasoned. He drank one beer and now, for four years he has been struggling to get back on the sober trail again, but, as of yet, has not been able to make it.

The former mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, said the devil is easy to identify. He appears when you are terribly tired and makes a very reasonable request which you know you should not grant.

What is the devil? Is it a little red man with horns, or the red lizard that was on the shoulder of the ghost? No. It is the inner tester inside of you – the lower human voice which continually whispers and tells you that you can take one drink; it has been seven years now. Or you can steal from your boss – it does not matter. The little voice never shuts up.

Whenever you hear a negative voice talking inside of you, it is the inner tester. The Chinese call it the chattering monkey. There is also another voice. It is a still, small voice of God. It is always positive. It always tells you what you can do.

Once, some disciples of Rabbi Pinchas ceased talking in embarrassment when he entered the house of study.

When he asked them what they were talking about before they entered, they said, “Rabbi, we were saying how afraid we are that the evil urge will pursue us.”

“Don’t worry,” said the Rabbi. “You haven’t gotten high enough for it to pursue you. For the time being, you are still pursuing it.”

Some years ago, a headline told of 300 whales that suddenly died. The whales were pursuing sardines and found themselves marooned in a bay. Frederick Harris commented, “The small fish lured the sea giants to their death. They came to their violent demise by chasing small ends, by wasting vast powers for insignificant goals.”

We can learn a lot from these giant creatures. We become a giant misguided creature ourselves when we let go of God.

Jesus taught that we are continually one with God, but we have to continually realize it. This is why we are here. We are here to be honest about whom we really are.

This is an honest church. In this place, you can hear, in honesty, about what the human being can do and become. Great things are in store for you as long as you go higher than your own human mind, to a God that is with you, and NEVER leaves you. When you look to God, continually, everything can change in your life, and you will have a greater power than you ever knew you had.

You may have tried, over and over again, to break a habit and you have not been able to do it. But working with God in a partnership, together, you can do it. God will show you the way, and God will also bring humans to you to help you along the way.

Every seventh day is a Sunday. I believe in this special time we are sharing together today. Not because I am a minister; it is the reason why I became a minister. Together, we can do great things. A person 21 years of age has had three years of Sundays in his or her life. Three years of hearing about what God can do in their lives. Three years of prayers, three years of a full day dedicated to God. A person of 35 had had five years. A person of 70 has had 10 full years of Sundays with God. This is a great addition to a human’s life, no matter what church you go to or what belief you hold, as long as you are looking to God and you know, in the moment, what God can do in your life.

In this church, we follow Jesus Christ. We follow what He said to do – pray constantly. Therefore, Sunday is not our only Sabbath. Every day of the week is a Sabbath to us, because we pray in the moment. We realize God in the moment. Each of the seven days of the week is designated as the Sabbath by various nationalities and religions. Monday is the Greek Sabbath, Tuesday the Persian, Wednesday the Assyrian, Thursday the Egyptian, Friday the Turkish, Saturday the Jewish, and Sunday the Christian. Every day, somewhere in the world, people are celebrating the Sabbath.

Let’s go beyond that and realize the truth – every day is a day of God. Every day is a moment for rediscovering the greatness of God in our lives. Breaking habits before they break you:

1. Live in a day-tight compartment. If you are going to give up a habit, forever, it is overwhelming to the human mind, but you can do it until midnight. At midnight, you start a new day. That is a day-tight compartment. You are not in the compartment alone. It is not a jail; it is a place of sanctuary between you and God. You are in there worshiping, and you feel the power and presence through you.

2. You ask for God’s help and action. Surrender to the presence. You go to God first.

3. Then go to humans, as God directs.

4. Once you go to God and humans and receive direction, then you act. Here are some things you are going to act on. You are going to write out an answer to the following questions.

a. What is my habit? Write it down. That is a powerful thing for a human being to do. As you write it down, you can admit you have the habit and say yes, you want to get rid of this habit, today, with God’s help.

b. What are the original causes of the habit? The nurse may say,” When I was 12 years old, I was nervous in the classroom; therefore, I chewed on paper.” Why does she still need to do it, today? Come to the realization you could stop, and then you come to the knowing you can stop.

c. What are the possible solutions as God directs and as men and women direct that God brings to you? What are the solutions? What can you do? What kind of help do you have?

d. Talk to God in prayer about the best solution.

5. How do you break your habit? You pray. You pray, and you pray often. Habit only looks back. Solutions look forward. A broken habit looks only to God. Every time, God will stop you from going down the path you have been on.

I want to share a true story with you about how God acts. This is a story told in the words of Mr. Orville Mitchell, the former president of Mark IV Auto Air Conditioners in Dallas, Texas.

“Probably, every one of us has, at some time or another, wondered how our prayers are being answered, but I recall one about which there is no doubt.

“Once, in the middle of the night, I awoke in the most terrible moment of a very realistic dream. I was driving a car and I had just struck a child. The effect upon me was so real and terrible that I climbed out of bed, got down on my knees, and asked God not to ever let a thing like this happen to me. In prayer, in that moment, it was as if the burden was taken from me and sleep was restored. Not another thought was given to the matter until noon the next day.

“Now, five of us were in a car at noon, the next day. I was at the wheel, and we were moving out on Worth Street about 25 miles an hour. Suddenly, an urge to immediately stop came to me, for no apparent reason.

I slammed on the brakes, and we stopped quite abruptly.

“The other four passengers picked themselves off the dashboard and the back of the front seat, and all five of us tried to figure out why this abrupt stop was necessary. We were amazed to see a child, dressed only in a diaper, emerge between parked automobiles and waddle out into the street, immediately in front of us.

“Next, a mother came charging out of the house, bounding over the curb, and out into the street. She angrily grabbed up the child, and without much more than a glance in our direction, retreated into the house.

“With tears in his eyes, he said, ‘To whom do you suppose the Lord has demonstrated God’s love in this remarkable answer to prayer? This little tot will probably never hear that his life was spared; the mother was so angry with herself for letting the child escape from the house that it is quite likely that she never breathed one thank you to God.’

“The other four occupants of the car, having heard the events leading up to the sudden stop, have asked me to tell the story, over and over, again. But to me, who would have suffered the most if God had not intervened? To me, it has meant all the world. All I can say in gratitude is that it will confirm what the Psalmist said, ‘There is none like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours.’ [Psalms 86:8]”

God can stop a crisis from happening in your life. We are all driving a car and the car is called habit. Each one of us has one because we are human and we are in this life. That is OK and I am NOT telling you that you are a bad person because you have a habit. We all have habits. I am telling you that it can be overcome with God. God will shake you up. Not hurting you, but God will move what is settled in you, what is stagnant, what you think is there for a lifetime. God will shake it up and shake it out and you are going to be left with perfection. When God shakes it out, you will have inside of you a great feeling of power. The old habit that has been such a monster to you will become that which you can get on and ride from that day forward. It will be something that will never overpower you, again. This time, you are the master of your habit.

Let us pray. If you are able to, join me in this prayer.

God, I think about my habit, right now. I go within to prayer. I say:

“God, I am willing. Shake me up; shake it out; and rid it from me. I give you my consent and I surrender to you, with everything inside of me. I no longer want this to be a part of my life. Send people to me who will help me. Help me to realize, moment by moment, of every day, that You are with me. Help me to realize I am not on my own power. I have a Divine power with me, all around me, and protecting me. I will overcome and I will break this habit with Your help.”

Thank you, God. Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

What a realization to know God is where we are. When we are searching for understanding in our lives when we ask the question, “What should I do?” The answer always consists of just one word – pray. That is what we are here to do now. We join with our prayer ministry, and we join with believing people, everywhere. Only One can instruct you in what you should do. That One is the Spirit of God. No one else has authority to say you must take a certain line of action.

We are here now to go into the sweet kingdom of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We are here to accept our guidance from God. The Spirit of God will tell you what your solution should be. We are not to be anxious if our instructions are not spelled out for us, word for word.

You have faith that you are being guided. Then, you take the course of action, either clearly revealed to you as the right one, or that you feel, through an inner urging, is the right one.

This is our time with God. It is a magical time in the kingdom of God. The silent, still voice speaks in ways we do not know. I ask you to rest for a moment in the silence and to attune yourself to the stillness, the peace, the wholeness, and the comfort of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, I come to You with my human self. I come to Your power and Your glory. I am tired of doing things on my own. Please guide me and please help me to break the habits I so wish to break, this morning. Infill me with your power and clear direction. Fill me with peace of mind and fill me with radiant health throughout my body.

I pray for increased energy. For those of you who have had dips in energy, recently, who do not feel up to par, I pray that God is quickening your energy level. May God create a new energy and motivation in your daily living.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

For those who need healing, know that God your creator is perfection, health, and ever-new aliveness. For those of you who are seeking answers, God has all the answers you are wanting. Turning to God, may you find the answers you seek, this day.

(Silence)

Those of you who are having prosperity challenges, God is your source of unfailing, unending, ever-accelerating prosperity. May you turn with me now to the Source which never fails. With an unshakable uncertainty in God, you are able to go forward in your life. God courage and decision rises up inside of you. You are one with the perfection of Spirit, radiating out from you. God is greater than any problem. God is bathing you in perfection.

Decree: I am a child of almighty God. I have faith in God’s spirit with me to inspire me and to guide me – to help me over any challenge that seems to be blocking me and to get to the point where I have in God the power to break those bad habits.

I pray this begins RIGHT NOW. You, my friend, are no longer on a fixed course going down the wrong road. May you be stopped in your tracks and redirected with the energy, motivation, and power of the Christ. May you have the power to turn around. May you have the power to make a quantum shift and jump in your life.

We pray together in the same way, in agreement in the name of Jesus Christ.

Thank You, God. Amen.

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Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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29Nov

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – We ALL Need Each Other

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - We ALL Need Each Other

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The late Congresswoman from Texas, Barbara Jordan once said something that speaks great truth. She said, “I don’t want to be run-of-the-mill person.” I don’t either, or I know that you don’t. Isn’t that why we are here this morning? It is because we want to shine with God brilliance in our lives. We want to live in the very best ways we can and enjoy life more.

I share an affirmation with you. “Who I am makes a difference.”

I like to look at that in the morning and I like for that to begin my day. Feel empowered by God to go beyond where I would ordinarily go. I realize that God is with you, and you can do things that alone of your human self, I might not be able to do. You want to make a positive difference in this world. You want to make the world a better place.

A simple commitment that is very easy and very rewarding, every day, say to yourself, I will make a difference in at least one person’s life.

Small differences accumulate adding up to major changes in people’s lives. You can make a difference; you can add to the equation to someone’s positive life. Do you know how easy that is? How profoundly it changes your life when you make that commitment? It is so joyous when you go out there and go on your search. You wonder who is going to be “the one” today. You wait to find that person.

Let me tell you a story. There is a small village in Nigeria, West Africa, which is an agricultural community, a farming community. This village is in a large valley, plush with trees and vegetation. The villagers live in houses of dried mud which women decorate with colorful designs each year during the harvest festival.

Surrounding the village are fields filled with crops of yams, corn, and other vegetables. Just beyond the fields is a deep river that the villagers call “Baba,” which means, “Father.” The river has been a friend to the villagers and a provider for the people. The men fish in it. Women wash clothes on its banks. Children play in its waters. But, in the rainy season, it can overflow, and the people are very fearful of its power. It could wipe out their crops and even threaten their safety.

There was a man in the village named Modupe, which means, “I am grateful.” Modupe was a shy, quiet man whose wife had died and whose children were all married. Modupe lived all alone, so he moved to the top of the mountain overlooking the valley. There he built a small hut and cleared a small piece of land to grow his vegetables. The people did not see Modupe often, but they loved and respected him.

One year at harvest time, there were unusually heavy rains. But because the crops had done so well and there was much work to do, no one paid much attention to the rains. One morning, Modupe went outside his house and was looking out over the valley when he noticed that the dam had been damaged.

The heavy rains were pouring down and the river had become so swollen from the rains that the dam was going to break. Modupe knew he did not have time to run down to the village to warn the people. It would be too late and all would be lost. Even as he watched, the wall of the dam began to break and water started to seep through in several places. Modupe knew that his friends in the village, their crops, their homes, and their very lives were in danger of being lost in the flood. He had to warn them. But how was he going to do this? An idea came to him. He rushed to his hut and set his own home on fire.

When the people in the valley looked up, they saw Modupe’s house on fire. They said, “Sound the alarm. Our friend is in trouble. Let’s go help him.” Then, according to the custom, men, women, and children ran up the mountain to help. As they reached the top of the mountain, a loud crashing noise from behind caused them to turn around and look down into the valley. Their homes, their crops, everything was being destroyed by the river, which had broken the dam and flooded the valley.

The people began to cry and moan about their loss. Modupe said, “Don’t worry. My crops are still here. We will share them while we build a new village.” The people began to realize what had happened and they began to give thanks. They knew that in coming to help a friend, they had saved themselves.

When I help you, I save myself, because God comes through me. When you help me, you save yourself because God comes through you. How wonderful God is! When we stand alone, and we become so independent that we do not care about another person, that is when we all fall. United we stand. Spiritual people are not independent; they are interdependent. We are a blessing to other people. When we go out and say, “OK, God, today is my day. Today is somebody else’s day, too. I am going to look for someone and You tell me whom I should bless, today.” The blessing could be in 10 million different forms. It does bless the other person when you do something for them. It comes back to you, pressed down, shaken over. It comes through you and yet, it comes back to you from the outside, too. Wow! You are the blessor and the blessee. You serve God by become a blessing in your world.

Let me tell you a story. Once there was a heavily booked flight out of the Denver airport that was cancelled. The single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the front and slapped his ticket down on the counter. “I have to be on this next flight and it has to be first class!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the agent replied, “You are going to have to go to the back of the line, because I have to take care of these people first, and then I’ll be happy to help you.”

The passenger was unimpressed. He said, “Do you have any idea who I am?”

Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and picked up the public address microphone. “May I have your attention, please? We have a passenger here at the gate who does not know who he is. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to the gate.”

The man retreated and the whole terminal burst into applause.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever gone to another person, wanting them to be impressed with who you are, and said, “Do you have any idea who I am?” If you really want to show another person who you are, become more interested in them than in you. They will be impressed.

Have you ever caused trouble because you thought you were not being treated as you should be because of who you are? If they only knew. You are willing to tell them who you are.

May you be known only by the positive difference you make in other’s lives. That is really what counts, isn’t it? We passed their way and we made their life better because we took the time to make their lives better.

Recently actor Paul Newman passed away. He was a great actor, but it was interesting that people said what he’ll really be remembered for is his humanitarian work. 40 years ago, he formed a food company “Newman’s Own.” All after-tax profit of what now $150 million year company is goes towards helping humanity. He had an illustrious career but is known best for what he did outside of his career.

Bill Gates will probably be the same, as will Warren Buffett. Live a life so large in positive shadow and it will be impossible for you ever to be forgotten.

So many times, we want to tell people what we have done in the past. We want to hand someone a resume and have them look at it and say, “I see what you are. Wow, am I impressed!” That is not who we are at all. We are not our biography, for the stories of our lives have not been fully written yet.

It is the difference that you can make in your life NOW that counts. You make a difference in your life as God directs. That is who you are.

May we take the pledge, today, to make a difference in at least one person’s life, every day, and find that happiness and bliss.

Let me tell you a story. One time, there were students of a rabbi. They approached their spiritual leader with a complaint about the evil that was everywhere in the world. They were intent upon driving out the forces of darkness. They requested that the rabbi counsel them. The rabbi suggested they take brooms and attempt to sweep the darkness out of the cellar.

The bewildered disciples applied themselves, using all their vigorous energy to sweep the darkness out of the cellar, but to no avail. The rabbi then advised his followers to take big sticks and to beat vigorously at the darkness to drive out the evil. When this likewise failed, he counseled them to go down again into the cellar and to protest against the darkness by lighting a candle. When they kindled their lights, the darkness had been driven out.

It is the same with us. When we kindle our light, something very special is going to happen.

Mark 4:21. “He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lamp stand?'”

In other words, were you born into this life to hide your light?

Are you supposed to hide it deep inside of you where no one could see it?

No.

“‘For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ And He said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.'” (Mark 4:22-25)

For to those who have, more will be given. When you are giving more blessings every day, you are going to have more blessings come to you. When you give nothing, even what you have will be taken away. You will lead an empty existence. We all want to do God’s will, but are we willing to walk in God’s footsteps.

You do not need to go off to a distant land. You do not need to become a missionary in some foreign country, you are needed right where you are. Each is called two different service. Know that God needs you right where you have been placed.

Do not have faith in anything less than God in your life because there will never be an end to God in your life. God needs you to be a missionary in ____________ (your State). God needs you to be a missionary in ____________ (your City). God needs you to be a missionary in your own home and business by becoming a light; to walk into a room and to have everyone in that room turn around because you have walked into that room.

They are glad to see you because of what you bring into their lives. You are always there to make it better. You are always there to say something positive and to make their day better. Because it comes through you, you will have a better day, too.

We all wish we were able to give gifts to others which would add to their joy and happiness. One of the greatest gifts we can give is the gift of blessing. Everybody wants to feel blessed. When you get up, tomorrow morning, how much more alive you will be as you crawl out of bed if you think, “I’m going to meet my good.” How much more alive you will be if you crawl out of bed and say, “I’m going to do good.” Because, as you do good, you are going to meet good. I am needed.

Do you know when it is the most fun to be a blessing? It is when you are a blessing to people who are hard to bless. That is where it really becomes entertaining.

Allow to me share some poetry with you.

There was an old man from Blackheath
Who, when he sat on a set of false teeth,
Rose with a start and said,
“Lord bless my Heart.
I’ve bitten myself underneath.”

I know a man who had the people skills of a hornet. He would constantly come to me and say, “How come people don’t like me?”

If you say what you think, don’t expect to hear only what you like.

He would put others down to make himself look better.

There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person.

True nobility is being superior to your previous self.

Over time, as the man prayed to change, he started to care for others and show it in his words and actions.

Last year, he was going to be honored. He was a changed man. The president of this large corporation was there.

He made the discovery overtime that he had a natural ability, but he was using it in a negative way. If he could just turn that around and use the power of his words to be a blessing, he could change his world. He was doing it. His was a totally changed and blessed life.

Huxley, the British author of “Brave New World,” spent most of his years observing and commenting upon the meaning of human life. In the last decade of his own life, after all those years of philosophizing, he confessed, “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has not more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.'”

Try to be a blessing. The Dalai Lama said the same thing. He said, “Religion is basically, three words: blessing, love, and kindness.” I agree. You have to imitate God. You have to be willing to follow God so closely that you are doing the will of God and you are doing it automatically by imitating.

A Welsh friend once shared his experience of working in an armaments factory during World War II.

The management had posted signs throughout the factory with just five letters on them: I A D O M. He told us that everyone knew the meaning of those letters. They stood for:

I It

A All

D Depends

O On

M Me

It all depends on me. The management used the signs to impress on the workers that each of them had to work as if the whole war effort depended on what they did individually. Each day, they had to think that victory depended on what they did that day. In a very real sense, I A D O M is a metaphor for individual growth. It all depends on what we do this day. If we want a better world; it all depends on us.

Late Hall of Fame catcher, Roy Campanella was one of professional baseball’s African American pioneers. Playing with Jackie Robinson on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Campanella won three Most Valuable Player awards in a 10-year career that was cut short by a crippling automobile accident.

Campanella was one of many stars on the powerful Dodgers teams of the early 1950s. He was confined to a wheelchair after an accident. He had a terrible time with the fact that he could not walk any more. He cried himself to sleep every night, as he thought, “What use am I to the world?”

The doctor came to him, one day, and said, “You are not doing very well with your own healing and I need your help. You have to feel alive again.”

Roy said, “No doctor, I just want to die.”

The doctor said, “No, Roy, you can still be a tremendous asset everywhere you go. Be a blessing to people. Get out of yourself, out of your own mind, and out of your own body, and think about other people more than yourself.”

Roy is still in a wheelchair, but he says, “I am more alive now that I was when I had two legs and was running around the bases. Now, I make other people’s lives better.” What a joy it is when you do. We often say, “God bless you.” God says, for you, to bless others.

Author Og Mandino wrote “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” which still sells 100,000 copies a year. But did you know there was a time when he was a drunken bum, living from gutter to gutter?

Do you know how he changed his life around? He changed his life around by getting out of his head and daily pity party and deciding to live for others. But he had to trick himself in order to do it. He went into the library and started reading success books and he got the idea to be a blessing. He wondered how he could be a blessing to others. He said, “Here is challenging advice. Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight.

“Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

There was once a bus driver who hated his job. He resisted getting behind the wheel every morning. He attended a seminar and was asked why he hated his job. He said, ‘Well, I think it is that seven minutes at the end of my run. At the end of my run, every day, I am next to this unofficial dump where everyone throws their trash. It just shows how bad humanity is.”

They said, “Oh, seven minutes out of your run. Other than that, is it OK?” He said, “It’s not bad, except the seven minutes there by the dump.”

One day, he got the idea that instead of complaining about it, why didn’t
he do something about the dump. He began to go in there and pick up cans. He looked forward to the seven minutes at the end of every run. It became his favorite place, because he knew if something was going to happen, he had to do it. During the spring, he picked up all the trash and then he started to plant flowers. Do you know that it became such a place of beauty that he had full busloads, not riding to their destination, but riding to the end of the run? He received an award from the city, but more than that, the city bought the property and made it a city park. The difference you can make with your life if you take the responsibility of I A D O M.

Our motto would be modified. I A D O M A G – It All Depends On Me And God – that is 1000 times more powerful than “me” alone.

Charles Harvey tells this true story. He said, “I made a commitment to being a blessing. Then, that very morning as I was driving to a job interview, running 15 minutes late already, I saw a middle-aged woman stranded with a flat tire. My conscience made me stop. I changed her tire and headed to the interview thinking I could just forget about getting the job now.

“But I filled out the job applications anyway, and went to the personnel director’s office. Did I get the job? Sure thing! The personnel director hired me on the spot. She was the woman whose tire I had just changed.”

That is the way God works.

I close with this.

The Day’s Result

Is anybody happier because you passed their way? Does anyone remember that you spoke to them today? The day is almost over, and its toiling time is through; Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you? Did you give a cheerful greeting to the friend who came along? Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said? Does the one whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead? As you close your eyes in slumber, do you think that God would say, “You have earned one more tomorrow by the work you did today?”

My friend don’t be a person that lives just for self-betterment. Make a difference with your life in the lives of others.

Let us pray. I give this day the God-touch and I glory in God’s blessings. I pray that I bless others as God’s love is reflected through my thoughtful acts, my gentleness, and courtesy, my words of praise and gratitude. The God-touch of my words and actions has an expanding, uplifting quality.

Thoughts held in mind create and produce after their kind. Today, God, with Your help, I give attention to others. I hold only positive thoughts. I think of the many blessings that I can give, and I am constantly blessed.

God’s order is gentle and continuous in me. I become an imitator of God’s orderly, gentle ways. Harmony prevails and soothes each step on my path. I feel my oneness with every living expression of God’s creation.

In Jesus Christ’s name I DO THIS.

Thank You, God. Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

Listen to these words of Jesus spoken about you: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before humans that they may see your good works and glorify your God in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

God created you. You are special, In all the world there is nobody like you. Just is your fingerprint is unique so is your soul. Since the beginning of time, there has never been another person like you. Nobody has your smile. Nobody has your eyes, your nose, your hair, your hands, your voice. You are special.

Accept this in the silence of prayer …

No one sees things just as you do. In all of time, there has been no one who laughs like you, no one who cries like you. And what makes you laugh and cry will never provoke identical laughter and tears from anybody else, ever. You are the only one in God’s creation with your set of natural God-given abilities.

Accept this in the silence of prayer …

There will always be somebody who is better at some of the things you are good at, but no one in the Universe can reach the quality of your unique God-given combination of talents, ideas, natural abilities, and spiritual abilities. Like a room full of musical instruments, some may excel alone, but none can match the symphony sound of the Body of Christ. God set the members – every one of them – in the body as it has pleased the Creation. You have been sent here to be a blessing to your world. You are empowered by God to be a blessing.

Accept this now in our time of silence. In the silence of prayer …

Through all eternity, no one will every look, talk, walk, think, or do exactly like you. You are special. You are rare. And as in all rarity, there is great value. Because of your great, rare value, you need not attempt to imitate others. You should accept – yes, celebrate your differences. You are special.

Continue to realize that it is not an accident that you are special. Continue to see that God created you special for a very special purpose. God called you out and ordained you to a calling of being a blessing that no one else can do as well as you. Out of all the billions of applicants, only one is qualified, only one has the best combination of what it takes. YOU are God equipped.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Just as surely as every snowflake that falls has a perfect design and no two designs are the same, so within the Body of Christ it is, also. No two believers are the same, and without each member, the body would be lacking. God’s plan would be incomplete.

Ask God, today, to teach you your Divine plan for life. Let it unfold in perfect sequence and in perfect order, in such a way as to bring the greatest glory to God!

Rest in the silence of prayer …

May you be Divinely empowered to be a blessing to all you meet. You are also, an endangered species of blessing unless you decide to bless.

We pray, this morning, in the name and through the power if Jesus Christ.

Amen.

For over 22 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
16Nov

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – New Life For You

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - New Life For You

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration With their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

Here is an example: First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA) presents a free gift Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

One of the most powerful Biblical lessons is the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus.

It is found in John 11:17-44. Jesus had been told about Lazarus’ death. He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. They were some of His best friends. He was very fond of them and was very troubled when He received this news.

“When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been dead in the tomb for four days. ‘Now, Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.

“When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, while Mary stayed home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of him.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’

“Martha said to Him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’

“She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

“When she had said this, she went back and called to her sister, Mary, and told her, privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to Him.

“Now, Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up, quickly, and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to tomb to weep there.

“When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she knelt at His feet and said to Him, ‘Lord if You had been here, my brother would not have died.’ “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’

“They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ “Jesus began to weep.

“So, the Jews said, ‘See how He loved him!’

“But some of them said, ‘Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

“Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’

“Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to Him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’

“So, they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank You for having heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’

“When He had said this, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.

“Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”

Jesus had raised others from the dead, but certainly, no one who had been “dead” for four days. How do we look at this story? Oftentimes, we are in situations where we feel (from our human perspective) that there is NO hope: things will not get better; the prognosis is bad; we don’t know if we can make it.

Oftentimes, we think that about ourselves. Have you ever noticed that when we are faced with a tremendous crisis. In our story today, Mary and Martha and the others saw Lazarus as dead, hopeless, never to recover.

Do you know someone in your life you feel cannot change? That it is hopeless, that they can be a better person? There are people out there who say things like, “I don’t know if he/she will ever change. It seems like the end of the road for him/her. It’s all over. We might as well give up. He / She is showing evidence of not changing.”

In our story today, after four days, there was an odor. We all know people who have a track record of indicating they are not going to change. Don’t you agree? When we hold to the appearances, it seems as if that situation is hopeless. Jesus though, said do not look to appearances. There is an odor; there is an activity; there is a state of mind or activity that takes place when we’re around them and we say things like, “I don’t care how much I pray and meditate; this is not going to change.” We don’t actually say this, but we think it sometimes.

Even Lazarus thought he could not change. Did you notice that? We can only entomb ourselves. No one can entomb us. They can help us to be healed, but no one can entomb us. Even Lazarus thought things could not get worse for him. He felt he had reached the end of the road, and nothing could make him improve. The prognosis seemed hopeless.

But through the salvation of God, through the living Christ presence, there are no hopeless situations.

Jesus said when He approached the tomb important words for us today. The first thing He said was “Take away the stone.”

What does that mean? Change that crystallized point of view you have about that situation. Yes, we may know what the prognosis indicates. You might say, “But, he came from this family and I’ve found that nobody has ever improved. I know his brother and sister, and I knew his parents. I know he is not going to change. Let’s face the facts; let’s face the reality. The reality is that is the way they are. They cannot change or improve.”

When Jesus said, “Take away the stone,” He was saying to take away that crystallized point of view, that perception you have of some individual some situations in your life today. There are stones to take away in ourselves and in others.

A man said, “I have a brother. My brother likes to drink alcohol a little more than is necessary. I went to see my brother and talked to him as a minister would a congregant. I talked about all the beautiful things that are available to him and all of us, and how much I loved him. While I was saying this, my brother was looking at me with one eye, trying to figure out what I was talking about because he was having a good time. He didn’t have a problem; in his eyes I was the one who had a problem.

“Why doesn’t he stop drinking? Doesn’t he know he is destroying his body?” I would pray, “Oh God, I pray my brother stops drinking.”

I noticed that every time I went to visit my brother there would be a strain in our relationship. I was not comfortable around my brother and he was not comfortable around me. I can remember all the years that my brother drank. I can remember some of the things he did and some things he did not do, simply because he was drinking.

The man said that “I grieved over the loss of a good relationship with my brother. I realized one day that to have a good relationship with my brother I had to behold God working in him.”

We have to behold God’s presence in the lives of difficult people. When Jesus told them to take away the stone, He was saying to change your way of thinking about the situation.

The man said, “It wasn’t easy for me to accept my brother wanting to lead the life he wanted to live. I noticed that once I started beholding God with him and prayed for his highest good (irrespective of what that is; even though it is not what I want), I changed. And when I changed, our relationship became easier. When I would visit my brother, he would smile at me and I would smile at him and say, “It’s okay.

We opened up lines of communication and support that were blocked before and real progress is being made.” I rolled away the stone.

We never know what is around the corner. We don’t know everything seeing from just the limited view of this moment. This former alcoholic had many people who gave up on him. He changed his life; he became one of the most outstanding citizens in the community.

Not only do we want to behold the presence of God in the people around us, but we also want to behold the presence of God in ourselves. Sometimes, we beat up on ourselves and think, “I guess I never will do what I want. . .I never will lose the weight I want to lose . . . I never will find the right job. . .I never will find the right relationship.”

Take away that stone! New life is waiting, by walking forth from our self-imposed tombs of limitation and lack.

We realize we have to change if things are going to change. If nothing changes, nothing changes. If we don’t change our point of view or our consciousness, our experiences stay the same.

It is senseless to go through life knowing God’s truth as we know it, YET living and acting in ways we have always lived and acted. Let’s change. So, when Jesus said to remove the stone, not only was He telling Mary, Martha, and the other leaders, but He was also telling Lazarus. His soul connected with Lazarus. Jesus Christ does not recognize death. In Christianity, we do not recognize death as the end of the end to everything. In our God’s house, there are many rooms, many mansions, many experiences, many changes that take place in our lives. If we could remain more optimistic and see beyond the seemingly limiting situations and see the light in every situation, light appears. You can only see light when you look for light.

So, Jesus called out, “Lazarus, come out!” He was speaking to the very essence of Lazarus; that part of him that was asleep to his potential and to the truth of his being as a child of God. As Jesus called out to Lazarus, Mary, Martha, and the others heard Him, and they changed their perception. In their own way, they called out, “Lazarus, come out!”

Do you have someone in your life (like the man’s brother) to whom you could say, “Come out! I will not limit myself to what I see because what I see is not the truth. It may be part of it, but it is not the full truth. I free myself to see the God potential, when God works in you. I free myself to have a good relationship with you.” I cannot do that unless I send love and hope and joy.

“Lazarus, come forth!” Tell yourself to come out of your tomb of limitation. Wake up to your God-given potential. You have not even come close to the potential God has for you. There is SO much more. You may have accomplished in life, but it’s a drop in the bucket to what’s ahead. The only limitation that exists, the only Lazarus that exists in your life, is your own limiting perceptions and attitudes toward yourself. The hope of glory is that we can change.

We can be faced with a situation where, through human perception, we see no way to succeed. But when we say, “COME FORTH!” we speak the word and something happens. Doors open up that never opened before. We have brand new God ordained experiences.

Jesus said something else very significant when Lazarus was walking forth wrapped in burial clothes. He commanded to loose him and let him go. He had to be unwrapped from the wardrobe of death. We must in the same way unwrap ourselves from any vestment that holds us to limitation in the past. We must walk forth being let go and freed.

I say, “Let’s dare to believe!” The word “dare” means to be fearless, to have courage, to have the boldness enough to do something.” IF you believe in God – you believe God’s creation – yourself?

Do you believe in the spirit of Jesus Christ which is alive and active in your life this very moment?

Dare to believe! Dare to believe and put your belief into action. This is a challenge. Belief must become action if you are to realize miracles. Put the most into life and get the most out of life.

When we have the correct concept of God, we can (as Jesus did) dare to believe that ALL things are possible. Dare to believe that ALL things are possible with God.

Matthew 8:13 says, “Be it done for you as you have believed.” [RSV] I have some positive prayer affirmations I want us to affirm in prayer. I’m going to lead you through these.

“I believe in God, and I believe in myself.

I believe that the mighty Spirit of God is healing and strengthening me now.

I dare to believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengths me.

I believe in the resurrecting power of Jesus Christ.

I believe I am God’s child in whom God is well pleased.”

How do we do this? One day at a time; one thought at a time; one prayer at a time.

In closing, I want to share a little information with you.

Just for today, try to live through this day only, and not try to tackle your whole life’s problems.

Just for today, try to be happy. (This assumes what Abraham Lincoln says is true: that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.) Happiness is within.

Just for today, try to adjust yourself to what is and do not try to adjust everything to your own desires.

Just for today, take good care of your body. Exercise it; care for it; nourish it so it will be the perfect machine to last a long time and will be responsive to your will.

Just for today, try to strengthen your mind. Study and learn something useful. Do not be a mental loafer all day. Read just a few lines that require effort to understand, which necessitate thought.

Just for today, be agreeable, look as good as you can, and talk softly, but plainly, in a firm voice. Act courageously. Criticize no one unjustly, and do not find unnecessary fault with things.

Just for today, have a program or a plan to do something. Write down what you expect to accomplish by the end of each hour. You may not be able to follow it exactly, but it will save you from two pests: hurry and indecision.

Just for today, have a quiet half-hour all to yourself. Relax. Sometime, think of God and the universe and get a little more perspective in your life.

Just for today, be unafraid. Be especially unafraid to be happy. Sometimes we are all afraid to be happy; to enjoy what is beautiful; to love and be loved by those who believe in you. Be unafraid of tomorrow, for then you may repeat “Just for today.”

Take away the stone, come forth, and unbind yourself.

Dear God, we give thanks for this wonderful opportunity. We believe in Your presence. We believe there are no impossible situations. We believe there is a spark of creating potential in all Your creations. We want You to influence our minds, our hearts, our very attitudes, and everything about us—our total consciousness. We are optimistic and excited about this life we live.

Truly, dear God, there are no hopeless situations. There is no Lazarus lying dead in our consciousness. We ask You now, God, to let Your Holy Spirit completely envelop this sanctuary, touching the mind and heart of every person here. We believe in You. We believe in Jesus Christ. And so we believe in ourselves.

And so, it is . . . Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________________

In this time of prayer and meditation we focus our faith in God. We believe ALL things are working together for our highest good, especially now. As I begin this day, I think of the challenges and responsibilities that lie before me. I take stock of my strengths and skills, and I ask myself, “Do I believe I am able. Do I believe I can be healed? Do I believe that all things are working together for my good?”

I believe that God is able and therefore God will equip and empower me to be able.

In the stillness of prayer, I affirm the presence of God with us right now, and the answer comes: “Yes! I believe God’s indwelling presence. I believe in my abilities. I believe I can do all things that are mine to do with God’s help.”

Rest in the silence of prayer. . .

Through my belief that God is my loving help in every need, I can make my world one of harmony, accomplishment, and love. I believe I can overcome troublesome situations that have bound me in the past. I believe in the strength and might of God in my life; the power that calms every storm. I believe I will continue to progress to the realization of that which is for my highest good.

Dear God, I believe in Your power to heal every situation, every condition, of mind, body, and affairs. Heavenly God, I believe in Your presence in every situation that brings about harmony and order. I believe there is no situation beyond Your help, and appearances that seem so real can be changed by You.

Rest in the silence of prayer. . .

Lord, I believe in Your power to protect me and my loved ones under all circumstances. You are everywhere present. You are with me. You are with my loved ones. Lord, I truly believe that all Your children carry within them the spark of help from the Divine. I see the good in all persons everywhere. I know that Your presence surrounds us and dwells within us all, guiding us into right avenues of good.

I am not defeated by apparent loss or failure. I am now downed by circumstances. When I hold to the realization that I am a spiritual being and that I was created in Your image and after Your likeness and through Your spirit which is alive in me, I am able to stand strong and steady.

Rest in the silence of prayer. . .

I do not give way to fear. I do not give up. I know that there is yet more in me, and there are new paths, new ways, new ideas opening to me. This new life that is opening before me is Divinely ordered by You, dear God, and I am excited and joyous as I watch my life change and blossom. I believe in You, dear God. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in myself. Thank You, God, for the ability to see past appearances and have an optimistic attitude. I thank You that we have the courage to do the things that are there for us to do, to rise above any apparent failing situation.

Rest in the silence of prayer. . .

Thank You, God, that we can make a 180-degree turn in our thinking, and that we can rise from what appears to be a dead-end and go forward in new directions to our good. Thank You, dear God.

Dear wonderful God, we believe in the purpose of Christianity and its worldwide mission, and we thank You that it is active in each of our lives right now. As we go forward in this worship service, we remain open, receptive, excited, and tuned into this real experience that we each are having. We are so grateful.

I believe in You, God, and so I believe in myself.

In Jesus Christ name, And so it is . . . Amen.

For over 22 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
08Nov

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Happy Thanksgiving

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Happy Thanksgiving

November 8, 2021 www.PositiveChristianity.org for 22 years presents POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON

Sermon # 1086 Happy Thanksgiving

Time Sensitivity: Sunday Before Thanksgiving (America)

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Every week we have multiple requests from churches to share a Positive Daily Inspiration With their congregation. You never have to ask for permission – you have my permission.

Many churches forward Positive Daily Inspiration to their congregations and visitors. This has exploded during Covid closures, and yet it is still little known about. Many churches send a message of their choice once or twice a week to their congregations co-authoring the message. Churches report that it has helped them stay in business and increased their financial support during these hard times.

 

Here is an example:
First Street Methodist Church (address any town USA)
Positive Daily Inspiration.

(And the message of their choice copied and pasted to their mailing list.) Churches can also utilize our Archives, and our Encyclopedia of Prayer to do the same with 1000’s of available messages.

Go to our homepage www.PositiveChristianity.org and sign-up for free. (Never a charge.)

We love people that reuse our material for the good of society. Our only copyright – is you have a right to copy.

_____________________________________

This is our turkey mascot for today. His name is George Gobble. He is going to be our mascot as we talk about Thanksgiving today. (Show funny stuffed turkey – available at Amazon, Wal-Mart, and everywhere)

Once there was a lady of very high rank who went begging the night before Thanksgiving Day. She wore ragged clothes. She put a shawl on her head and carried a basket. She wanted to test the charity of her neighbors. At some houses, she was given things of absolutely no value. At others, she was told harshly to go away. Only in one place was she received with a welcome and given a large warm meal. That was at the home of a poor man. Here she was taken into a warm room and treated like royalty.

The next day was Thanksgiving. All the people the lady had visited in the town were unexpectedly invited to the castle. When the servants led them into the main dining room, place cards showed each person where to sit. On the plate before each person was the same thing that person had given to the disguised lady the day before. Some plates were completely empty. Only the poor man received a huge helping of warm food.

When the countess entered, she explained to her guests. She said, “I came to you yesterday to test your charity; I went all about the village dressed as a beggar. Today I am serving you the same thing you gave me yesterday.”

Take a calendar you can carry around with you, to daily write down what you are thankful for, write down current things, and remembered things, the little things and the big things. Then during Thanksgiving, you go back over your list realizing what God has done for you.

It is a truly enlightening experience. As you review this, you are being filled with an awareness of God. If you haven’t done this before, I invite you to start this now. Everyday write down the things you are thankful for to review next year.

In today’s lesson we go one step beyond – to Thanks – Giving. We talk about giving gratitude for what you have, about giving something back. Often if you talk with very successful people, they are overflowing with gratitude because they have come a long way with God’s help. No matter where they come from or how they have gotten their success, they often have an overwhelming desire to give something back, to help other people climb that ladder, to help others avoid some of the mistakes they made.

My friends, you have it all right now. You have all the blessings from God. It is time to realize this and start giving back to humanity and helping humanity. This is our subject today, about how you do really make a difference. One person, then two, then three, then four, and then a million people making other peoples’ lives better. What better way to say thanks to God? You can do it.

Let me share a story with you about Anthony Robbins. He is a very successful businessman. He now spends his life teaching others how to succeed. Here is his story in his words:

“I remember one Thanksgiving when our family had no money and no food, someone knocked on our door. A man was standing there with a huge box of food, a giant turkey, and even some pans to cook it in. I couldn’t believe it. My dad demanded, `Who are you? Where are you from?’

“The stranger announced, `I’m here because a friend of yours knows you’re in need and that you wouldn’t accept direct help, so I’ve brought this for you. Have a great Thanksgiving.’

“My father said, `No, no, we can’t accept this.’

“The stranger replied `You don’t have a choice,’ closed the door and left.

“Obviously that experience had a profound impact on my life. I promised myself that someday I would have enough money to do the same for other people. By the time I was 18, I had created my own Thanksgiving ritual. I like to do things spontaneously, so I would go out shopping and buy enough food for one or two families. Then I would dress as a delivery boy, go to the poorest neighborhood and knock on a door. I always included a note which explained my Thanksgiving experience as a kid. The note concluded, `All that I ask in return is for you to take good enough care of yourself so someday you can do the same thing for someone else.’ I have received more from this annual ritual than I have from any amount of money I’ve ever earned.

“Several years ago, I was in New York City with my wife. She was sad because we weren’t with family. Usually, we were at home decorating the house for Christmas, but we were stuck in a hotel room.

“I said, `Honey, look, why don’t we go out and decorate some lives instead of some old dead trees?’ She didn’t know what I was talking about. Then I told her about my Thanksgiving ritual. She was enthusiastic. I said, `Let’s go someplace where we can really make a difference. To appreciate who we are, what we are capable of and what we really can give let’s go to Harlem.’ She and several of my business partners who were with us weren’t really enthusiastic about the idea of going to Harlem. I urged them. I said, `Come on let’s make a difference in some people’s lives. Let’s go to Harlem and feed some people. We won’t be the people who are giving it because that would be insulting. We will just be the delivery people. We will go and buy some food for six or seven families for 30 days. We have enough. Let’s just go do it.’

“That’s what Thanksgiving really is, giving good thanks, not eating turkey. My partners started calling rent-a-car places, but they were all out of vans. Quickly they shrugged their shoulders and said, `Well it is no use, we can’t help people this year because we can’t get a van to carry all the food.’

“I called them over to the window. They looked down at the street far below. I said, ‘Do you see all those vans down there?’

“They said, ‘Yes we see them.’ I said, “Let’s go get one.”

“First we went down and tried walking out in the street in front of the vans. But we learned something about New York drivers that day. They don’t stop; they speed up. Then we tried going to all the traffic signals while the cars were stopped, knocked on the window, and said, “Can you help us?” It wasn’t very long before the perfect van showed up at the traffic light. It was perfect because it was extra big, and it would accommodate all of us. We went up, knocked on the window, and asked, “Could you take us to a disadvantaged area? We will pay you a few hundred dollars.”

“The driver said, “You don’t have to pay me. I’d be happy to take you. In fact, I’ll take you to some of the most difficult spots in the whole city.” Then he reached over and grabbed his hat. As he put it on, I noticed it said, Salvation Army. The man’s name was Captain John Rondon and he was the head of the Salvation Army in the South Bronx.

“We climbed into the van in absolute ecstasy. He said, `I’ll take you places you never thought about going but tell me something. Why do you want to do this?’ I told him my story and that I wanted to give gratitude for all I had by giving something back.

“Captain Rondon took us into parts of the South Bronx that make Harlem look like Beverly Hills. When we arrived, we went into a store where we bought a lot of food and some baskets. We packed them for seven families for 30 days. Then we went out to start feeding people. We went to buildings where there were half a dozen people living in one room – `squatters’ with no electricity and no heat in the dead of winter surrounded by rats, cockroaches, and the smell of urine. It was both an astonishing realization that people can live like this and a truly fulfilling experience to make even a small difference.”

You see, you can make anything in the world happen if you commit to it, take action and plan a thanks – giving.

I have a question for you. What can you give back this Thanks – giving? What can you give back to life because life has been so unbelievably good to you?

Gratitude takes three forms:
1. It is a feeling in the heart.
2. It is an expression in words
3. It is a giving in return.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it away.

One of the most breathtaking sights in the whole world is a San Diego sunset on the beach. As the sun sinks slowly into the horizon, hundreds of seagulls stand and turn quietly toward the sun to bid farewell. Pelicans then fly by in perfect formation, skimming just the top of the waves in their sunset salute. On the bridge across from the beach, thousands of birds line up on the electrical wires all sitting, facing the sun, and saying goodbye to the day. Perhaps they are also silently praying thank you God for this day that you let me live. They give thanks in silence.

Author Dr. Eric Butterworth has written, “You do not need something to be grateful for. You need only the desire to feel grateful and to show it to others.” How do you show gratitude to others?

In Matthew 25: 35-40, Jesus is speaking, and He is speaking directly to you: “‘For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick, and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it we saw you as a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it, we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'”

How do you honor God? According to this, you honor God by helping God’s children.

If you wanted to thank me for something, do you know how you could really thank me? If you helped my son or daughter, I would remember you forever because I so love and adore them. If you helped them, I would think about you with a smile on my face every night when I went to bed. God feels the same way about all of you.

We are not to be separate; we are to be a team. We are all members of one family and we are to help each other. That is the way to thank God and show gratitude. Yes, you feel gratitude in your heart for all God has done for you. Now is the time to give it away and make others know how good it is by seeing God in you.

A Thanks – giving is Thanksgiving in action. It attunes your consciousness to the wavelength of God. It is daily exercise of the spirit of Thanksgiving through giving. It is giving thanks to God, giving thanks to each other in our home, giving thanks to each other in our workplaces. Giving thanks through giving to people we don’t even know.

If you have never practiced this Thanksgiving ritual, you have left unused one of the most potent factors available for your happiness. It is a living celebration of God’s Truth.

It is not what you do, in the end; it is what you do it in the beginning. Here is what I mean by that. You do not wait until every prayer is answered before you give thanks. You act as if it were now so, through your actions.

Thanksgiving is like rain to a thirsty soil. Humanity is thirsty. Humanity needs your help. You say, “I don’t know where to begin.”

Ask God to show you HOW.
Ask God to show you WHEN.
Ask God to show you WHO.

You will be shown. Probably when you open up your eyes, you will have someone in front of you needing you where only you could make a difference. You might think you don’t have enough inside of you to give. God is inside of you and God will give through you and empower you in the giving.

The mental act of thanksgiving carries your human mind far beyond the region of doubt into a clear atmosphere of faith and trust, of building and strengthening, where all things are possible to you. Then you go into physical action of a thanks – giving. This is a Thanksgiving action prayer. It is an open line to God.

Today choose with me to be the most grateful and happy person alive. Choose to make a difference.

Gratitude and praise are the saviors of the world. How do they save the world? Through you and each one of us. The person who grumbles or complains through life doesn’t save anybody, least of all themselves. The person who is so alive with life really makes a difference. Their light shines on others continuously.

Let me share a story. A missionary to Africa has related the story of his work with a tribe that was mysteriously poverty-stricken, even though other tribes in the same region were relatively prosperous. He was curious about this phenomenon. He spent years researching all aspects of their culture. He came up with just one possibility. In their tribal language, they had no word with which to express gratitude. Perhaps through some quirk of evolution, they had forgotten how to say thank you. He drew no conclusions, but he did ask a question: Could this loss of the spirit of thanksgiving have been responsible for their poverty?

On Thanksgiving we give thanks, but to whom? It must be an odd feeling to feel thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often witness an odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. People are thankful in general. They are thankful in a vague, sleepy way.

There is a story of Aaron who was a fisherman. He lived on the banks of a
river. He was walking home one day with his eyes half-closed after a long day. He was tired. He was dreaming of what he would do in the future when he became rich. Suddenly his foot struck a leather pouch filled with what he thought were pebbles. Absentmindedly he picked up the pouch and opened it. As he walked along, he said, “When I’m rich, I will have a big castle.” Then he threw a pebble in the river. He walked along and said, “I will have a wonderful car when I am rich.” He then threw another pebble into the river. “When I am rich, I will have a gorgeous wife.” He then threw another pebble into the river. He was down to the last pebble when the moonlight fell on the pebble, and he noticed that it glistened. He realized at that point that he had been throwing valuable gems into the river. He had it all along.

It is the same way with our lives. If we just realized the incredible gifts of God we have with us, we can feel alive in a new and a great wondrous way. It is easy to give thanks when everything is going well. When you have had all the answers to your prayers, you can say, “Thank you, God,” in celebration. I know it is difficult to give thanks when you are in the middle of a challenge. It is hard to give thanks when you are in pain. It is hard to give thanks when you are going through a business problem, a personal bankruptcy, or there are problems mounting up in front of you. This is precisely the time that you do need to give thanks.

I want to share a story with you about Matthew Henry, a famous scholar. He was once accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse. He wrote these words in his diary, “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before, secondly because although they took my purse, they did not take my life, third because although they took my all it was not much, fourth because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed, and fifth because I choose in this moment to freely give to the one who needed it more than I, so that I will not hold on to the possession of the grief of loss in my memory forever.”

Dr. David Soper in his book, God is Inescapable, suggests that basically the difference between a prison and a monastery is just the difference between griping and gratitude. Undoubtedly this is true. Imprisoned criminals spend every waking moment griping. Self-imprisoned saints spend every waking moment giving thanks. He says that when a criminal becomes a saint, a prison may become as a monastery. When a saint gives up gratitude, a monastery may become like a prison.

Is your life a prison or a monastery? You make your life a monastery by giving thanks in everything and by a thanks-give-away, which gets you out of yourself, and into the higher life of helping humanity.

Join me in a closing prayer.

This morning dear God, I give thanks and I praise you. My world is filled with so many bountiful blessings that I cannot count them all.

As I enter into this special week of giving thanks, I will look for reasons to be thankful. As I think of the life which sustains me, the light which guides me, the love which warms my heart, I say, “Praise God!”

As I give of myself today, my heart is filled with love. I see the truth. I have understanding. As I give of myself today, I will make a difference. I will do an in my power to be a light and to bring a blessing to my surroundings by a thanks-give-away.

As I reach out to praise You God in everyone I see, I reach out to praise God-light everywhere I see in others with my God-vision. I praise You God for all we love which is all-great. We all live, move, and have our being in Your love.

In Jesus Christ’s name, we pray, and we believe. Amen.

Prayer / Meditation____________________________

Today in prayer:

I begin a thanks – giving.

I GIVE thanks to God for the gift of life – by living it triumphantly.

I GIVE thanks to God for talents and abilities – by investing them for the common good.

I GIVE thanks to God for all others have done for me – by doing things for others and giving joyous love to others.

I GIVE thanks to God for opportunities – by accepting them as open doors to new achievements.

I GIVE thanks to God for beauty – by helping to make the world more beautiful.

In gratitude rest in the silence of prayer …

I GIVE thanks to God for inspiration – by trying to be an inspiration to others.

I GIVE thanks to God for good health – by taking care of my body.

I GIVE thanks to God for creative ideas that enrich life – by adding my own creative contribution to life.

I GIVE thanks to God – by contributing to life.

In gratitude rest in the silence of prayer …

I GIVE thanks to God for each new day – by believing it will be the best day yet.

For these things we are thankful, and I ask you to rest in the silence of prayer.

(Silence)

I live in light of God. By the light I see, I can see God has created good. I was created with love to be a caring person. The people with whom I live, work, and associate were created in love, and I give thanks for them.

I am empowered to be responsible and to create a life which fulfills my dreams and meets my needs.

I GIVE thanks to God – by lifting other people up to fulfill their dreams.

Jesus Christ came into this world to teach the truth of empowerment and responsibility. With a trusting spirit, I accept the empowerment and responsibility, with love, wisdom, and the power of God as my own nature – and I share it with others.

In Thanks – giving to God, I share these truths with the world. Wherever I am, may the truth of God live in example through me.

In Jesus Christ’s name. Amen

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01Nov

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Serving

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Serving

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I love watching a good tennis match. For me one of the things tennis brings to mind is the flow—the give and take—of the game. It is a game where serving is everything.

I have an old T-shirt that says, ‘Tis Better to Serve Than to Receive. The scripture reference here is Bjorn (Bjorn Borg) 6-2, 6-3, 6-1. If you know anything about tennis, you know what that is all about.

It is better to serve than it is to receive, in tennis and in life. We all know it is better, but how is it better?

Psychologist and consultant, Peter Block, wrote the book, “Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-interest.” I want to read a portion of that to you now.

He says: “Ultimately, the choice we make is between service and self-interest. Both are attractive. Fire and intensity of self-interest seem to be all around us. We search, so often in vain, to find leaders we can have faith in. Our doubts are not about our leaders’ talents, but about their trustworthiness. We are unsure whether they are serving their institutions, or themselves. When we look out at our peers and our neighbors, we see so much energy dedicated to claiming entitlements. The nuclear family now includes a parent, a partner, children, a financial consultant, and a lawyer. We are no different. We were born into the age of anxiety, and became adults in the age of self-interest.

“The antidote to self-interest is to commit and find cause; to commit to something outside of ourselves and be a part of creating something we care about so we can endure the sacrifice, the risk, and the adventure commitment entails. This is the deeper meaning of service.”

When we are called to service, the issue comes up for us. It is a tug of war between two different parts of us – a part of us that is interested only in ourselves, and part of us that truly wishes to help and care for others.

In the Bible when Jesus was hanging on the Cross? There were two robbers on either side of Him.

One of the robbers looks over at Jesus through his pain and says (paraphrased), “What are you doing here? If you are so great, why don’t you save yourself?”

But the robber on the other side of Jesus says, in effect, “You’re the Son of God. My friend and I are guilty; we deserve to be here. But you haven’t done a thing.”

Jesus replies to the second man, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

These two men represent two parts of ourselves. The first man represents that natural, normal “looking out for #1” self-interest who can only see through his own eyes of pain and suffering. He can only feel a certain kind of mocking quality toward the Divine.

The second man looks up a little higher and sees that the sacred part of life that we call the Christ is totally innocent and recognizes it. He calls out to it, and then the Christ, that sacred part, assures him, “This day you will be with me in paradise;” just by making that conscious contact with God, with spirituality, he was saved. The second part represents our willingness to become larger than the little parts of ourselves – to give, to commit, to become great. Until we become fully in the state of the Christ, I think we are always in a kind of conflict or war between these two parts of ourselves.

In spirituality, life is about our service to others.

The reward of service is that when we turn our attention to help someone else, we forget our own misery, which was created by our own willingness to dote on it.

Service gives us the opportunity to look beyond ourselves. But we have to make that choice. Who are we going to be? Which man on the Cross are we going to be, today?

“Each person’s work will become manifest.” 1 Corinthians 3:13

There is a story about a conversation overheard when a group of school children were talking about sharing. According to one boy, sharing is what you do when you only have one of something and the teacher is looking. Which voice is that speaking? It is the voice of the first man—looking out for #1.

St. Francis wrote a prayer that captures the essence of what I am saying here today. He said: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; not so much to be understood as to understand; not so much to be loved as to love.”

The world, as is commonly understood (as in worldly wisdom), is looking out for #1. This has its value, its place, and its purpose. We all know that we have to take care of our own needs. I’m not speaking here of some type of total sacrifice, where we give up everything we have and lay on beds of nails.

We are to seek to satisfy our own basic needs; to find ways of nurturing ourselves and keeping ourselves healthy; and providing means of expression of our gifts.

But beyond that healthy self-interest, there lies a subtle trap that we all fall into. At some point, we have to stop trying to satisfy the ego and start surrendering the ego. And surrendering is the last thing the ego wants to do.

What do we do?

What happens is we eventually find ourselves in a cage of our own making. We do everything we already know how to do, over and over again, until the suffering becomes so great that we are willing to burst out of that cage and do whatever it takes. It seems like what is being offered to us as an antidote is to serve.

Spiritual people always look out for #2.

It is true, when we are thinking of someone else, we take our minds off our own pain, and it seems to magically disappear. What a great thing that is! When we actually begin to give of ourselves, we suddenly feel larger.

Why is that?

Because when we give, we literally do become larger because we experience, maybe for the first time, how great we are. We realize the God power of love inside of us. When we touch it, tap it, and give from that Divinity, we start experiencing God in the world.

For all our talk in Christianity about prosperity and abundance, we are still often trapped by our concepts. We are still that first man on the cross looking out for #1 in our prosperity. We are trying to see how we can use affirmations and visualizations to capture more for “me,” and we think we will give a little bit back, later. We don’t get the big picture of prosperity, which is simply to know that God is here. Prosperity is to experience that. When we do that, the world is different. We feel so prosperous. We know that abundance, but the ego doesn’t like it too much.

There is an old Jewish story of how God decided where to put the temple in Jerusalem. The story goes that there were two brothers. One had a family and one didn’t. They loved each other very much. They were in the grain/flour business together. Every night, the brother who had a family would look at his wife and children and say, “When I grow old, I’m going to have my family to take care of me, but my poor brother is all by himself.” So, he would take as much of the grain he had taken home for personal use, and he would put some flour back for his brother.

In the meantime, his brother who was at his house by himself would think, “I’m just fine. My poor brother has a whole family to feed, so I need to help them out.” So he would take some of his flour back to the business for his brother. Unknown to the other, they both would continually give back some of their personal flour.

One day, they met on the road on the way to their business, and they realized what they had been doing for all those years. That is where God chose to build the temple.

That is a sweet story. Behind it is the simple message of where divinity dwells – in the openness, the giving, and the sharing.

When a great teacher of prayer was asked, “How can I feel the bliss of God?” He answered in one word: “Service.”

There was an extraordinary article in the Toronto Star some years ago. The headlines said: “Girl Weeps as Jet Passengers Give.” Let me read you a little piece of that story.

“The little girl wept as big-hearted passengers on a jumbo jet raised the equivalent of $97,000 in a mid-air collection to pay for a lifesaving operation. Four-year-old Marian Kadash who suffered from a serious liver condition, was flying to Britain for tests at a top London hospital. She will need a liver transplant. The pretty, dark-haired child and her mother burst out in tears as the 450 passengers and crew who heard about her plight emptied their pockets. Everyone on board threw money into a suitcase being carried around the jet as it flew over the Mediterranean toward Heathrow Airport. The suitcase, which was filled after it went around once, was carried around a second time to cheers and applause. Astonished crew and passengers gasped with disbelief when the collection in a dozen different currencies added up to $97,000. The flight was flying British holiday merrymakers home from Tel Aviv, and a group of British millionaires helped bump up the fund raising to its final tally.”

What was going on in that place? People were stepping out of their self-interest and serving and giving. How did they feel? One of the great secrets to service is the experience you have when you give.

The writer, Alan Cohen, tells of a time when no one would do the dishes at his house. The dishes would just pile up in the sink. Everyone had the attitude of “Ugh, dishes . . . work . . .drudgery . . . chores.” He had the idea of putting up a little list in the kitchen. He called it “self-less service to God or knowing the bliss of God through selfless service.” He found that his roommates liked putting their names up there. Pretty soon the dishes were done and the sink was clean.

Service is really more of an attitude than it is a job or a specific role. You can do service wherever you are with whatever you are doing. In fact, you can do the same stuff you do every day, but shift whom you are doing it for. Are you the man on the right side of the Cross or on the left? If you can start seeing God in the people you work with, and seeing God’s expression in everything you do, then all of your chores become blissful prayer. What a secret. Then you start experiencing and feeling the presence of God.

I don’t know how many of you are new to church or how many of you have been coming to church for many years, but there is a lot to learn in spiritual truth. However, the basics are really rather simple. You get them all within a few months or so. After that, there really isn’t anything essential you have to learn. You’ve got it. Then you have to take it and apply it in your life, or it becomes more of a burden to you. You would be better off not knowing about it if you don’t put it into practice.

Service is the finest way of practicing the presence of God. So, when you are doing service, whether it is washing your dishes, or balancing your checkbook, or working in your office, or sweeping the steps, you are really sweeping out the dust from inside your own heart. You are really cleaning up your own life when you serve.

This is how service rules in the language of Murphy and Luke Yenson. Service rules because it gives you and me the opportunity to clean up our acts, to practice what we know, to see God in the world, to feel God rather than our own petty egos and our little concerns. What a great gift that is! Every person in prayer and meditation must eventually get up and begin serving God in the world.

I would like to close my talk with a parable that Bruce Barton tells that sums up very nicely what service is. It talks about the two different kinds of people there are in the world, and who live inside of us.

There are two seas in Palestine. One is fresh and fish are in it. Splashes of green adorn its banks. Trees spread their branches over it and stretch out their thirsty roots for a sip of its healing waters. Along its shores the children play as children played when Jesus was there. He loved it. He could look across its silver surface when He spoke his parables. And on a rolling plain not far away Jesus fed 5,000 people. The River Jordan makes this sea with sparkling water from the hills. Men build their houses near to it, and birds their nests, and every kind of life is happier because it is there.

The River Jordan flows on south into another sea. Here is no splashing fish, no fluttering leaf, and no song of birds, no children’s laughter. Travelers choose another route, unless on urgent business. The air hangs heavy above its water, and neither men nor beast nor fowl will drink.

What makes this mighty difference in these neighboring seas? Not the River Jordan – it empties the same good water into both. Not the soil in which they lie nor the country around it. This is the difference – the Sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan. For every drop that flows into it, another drop flows out. The other sea is shrewder, hoarding its income, jealously. It will not be tempted into a generous impulse. Every drop it gets, it keeps. The Sea of Galilee gives and lives. The other sea gives nothing. It is named Dead.

There are two seas in Palestine; there are two kinds of people in the world; there are two kinds of persons inside you and me.

Move from survival to significance.

Decide this day whom you will serve.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________________________

Allow yourself to sit comfortably in your seat. Take a deep and slow breath, in and out. Feel yourself relaxing in the bright presence of God.

Bring to mind the seashore; see the tide of the ocean coming in and going out. Notice the ebb and flow. See if you can feel the rhythm of that flow. The tide comes in and it goes out, again and again, ceaselessly ebbing and flowing.

There is a great secret to that flow. In Christianity, we call it the Holy Spirit, and there is a rhythm to its movement. Wonderfully, perhaps even miraculously, you and I have been given a physical complement to this ebb and flow; it is our breath.

Deeply relax in the silence of prayer. . .

Become conscious, now, of your lungs filling with air and then letting the air go. We can picture the ocean flowing in and out, as we breathe in and out. This rhythm, being conscious of the flow of breath, stills the mind and stops that endless chatter of thoughts. It brings us to that state we call the silence that lies so deep within us. Like the depths of the ocean, all is still, yet all is still vitally alive, the source of life.

I ask that we spend a few minutes or so, in the silence of prayer, following our breath in and out. If you wish, you can continue to picture the ebb and flow of the ocean as you do so.

We will rest together in the silence of prayer. . .

On the in breath allow the full love of God to come in. As you exhale allow all resentment and old disturbances of mind to leave you.

We are one in the great love of God.

On the in breath allow the full wisdom of God to enter your mind. As you exhale, you let go of old concepts and opinions that are not to the Christ standard.

On the in breath allow the full health of God to take residence in every cell. As you exhale you let go of any impurity that has been held within the body.

Rest in the silence of prayer…

We receive from God and we give. Dear God we ask a simple prayer that we can serve more. We ask that we can make a difference because of the difference you have made in on us. We are ready and we are willing to be of service now. Help us to give more and be less concerned about ourselves.

For this knowledge and experience, we are grateful,

In the name of Jesus Christ . . . Amen.

For over 22 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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25Oct

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Smile! God IS With You

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Smile! God IS With You

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It’s good to laugh in church. If you can’t laugh in church where can you laugh?

Christianity is a religion of joy, and in that context I have a few things to share with you. I have a new somewhat modified version of 23rd Psalm to share with you today dealing with diets:

My appetite is my shepherd; I always want.
It maketh me sit down and stuff myself.
It leadeth me to my refrigerator repeatedly.
It leadeth me in the path of Burger King for a Whopper.
It destroyeth my shape.

Yea, though I knoweth I gaineth I will not stop eating
For the food tasteth so good.
The ice cream and the cookies they comfort me.
When the table is spread before me, it exciteth me.
For I knoweth that I sooneth shall dig in.
As I filleth my plate continuously,
My clothes runneth smaller.
Surely bulges and pudgies shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall be “pleasingly plump” forever.

Let share of story of Mrs. Monroe. She lives in Darlington, Maryland. She is a mother of eight children, and except for a few interesting experiences, she is like many other mothers across America.

She came home, one afternoon, from the grocery store, walked into her home, and everything looked pretty much the same, though it was a little bit quieter than usual. She looked in the middle of the living room and five of her darlings were sitting around in a circle, exceedingly quiet, doing something with something in the middle of the circle. So she put down the sacks of groceries, walked over, closely looked, and saw they were playing with five of the cutest skunks you can imagine.

She was instantly terrified, and she said, “Run, children, run!” Each child grabbed a skunk, and they ran in five different directions. She was beside herself and she screamed even louder, more frantically, and with great gusto. It so scared the children that each one squeezed his skunk! As the mother wrote me, “Skunks don’t like to be squeezed.”

I saw a sign the other day that said, “God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind, I will never die.”

Maybe you feel that way, today. Maybe you feel that some things are temporarily out of your control as hard as you try. God can help manage your life and help you every minute of the day and night. God can bring your life into a wonderful Divine Order.

God has a plan for your life and for my life. It is a Divine appointment that you are here and that I am here, this morning, to hear these words. These words are for everyone whose get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone.

When your smile has turned to a frown, and it is time to turn to God. We get tired often when life has become a hard climb. We have found that is a little bit tougher than to we had imagined. We wonder how in the world we will get over the next hurdle.

It is time to turn to God. When we do, we find out the truth that God is at hand, and we find that new strength is at hand. The truth is that your life can be great.

God is life, and God is the giver of life. We can, again, become engaged and excited about our lives, today. We can become excited about connecting with God.

The deeper the prayer in your life, the deeper the inspiration and the finer the ideas.

We are positive faith-filled people.

We choose to be. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, sailed to an uncharted land, or opened up a new heaven to the human spirit. To do all that we need to do, we have to say, “Yes.” We have to say, “I’m ready; I’m willing; and I’m very excited about what is happening.”

Diane Ackerman once said, “I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.”

You don’t, either. You want to be fully engaged in experiencing and enjoying. You want to be a VIP, a Very Involved Person. A person who is totally engaged and in the enjoyment of God’s blessings. Take yourself out of neutral in all the areas of our lives, and become engaged in the enjoyment, the spirituality, and the fun or our lives.

Hostile-looking tribesmen in a South American jungle suddenly surrounded a missionary. Noting their posed spears and poisoned arrows, the missionaries knew they had to think of something and think of it, quickly. At that moment a plane flew overhead, and he said, “See that bird up there? That is my friend. If you hurt us, it will kill you.”

The chief took one glance into the sky and then answered, “That’s no bird; that is a Boeing 747.”

Sometimes life takes surprising turns, in the moment of the surprise – we must call upon Divine help.

The survival of the fittest drama – not by hiding behind a shell because things in life have become unpredictable. I believe it is grasping life, riding the waves of life, and enjoying our moments.

Bruce Larson tells a story of an old woman who died in a nursing home. She left nothing of monetary value, but after she died, this was found in her possessions. It talks so richly about the life that is inside of the human being that I want to share it with you, this morning.

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try!”

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe … ..
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill … .

Is that what you’re thinking?
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse; you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten, with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who love one another.
A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet.
A bride soon at twenty — my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five now, I have young of my own,
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man’s beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty, once more, babies play round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead;
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old woman … and nature is cruel;
‘Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years … all too few, gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, nurses, open and see,
Not a crabby old woman; look closer … see ME!!

What do you see when you look into the mirror? Do you see someone who is made up of the sum total of his, or her problems? Do you see someone who, for some reason or another, in some areas of his or her life, puts himself or herself into neutral and hides for protection?

I’m going to give you a secret and a key. Commitment to life turns the weights into wings! It allows you to fly over former problems that used to hold you down, and allows you to take hold of a new day.

Oprah Winfrey says, “Every day is a kick.” I agree.

Author Eric Butterworth loves to tell this story of a rooster. This rooster crowed with vigor every moment at sunrise. He actually thought that his crowing caused the sun to rise. It gave him a sense of significance. His life mattered.

One morning, he overslept. He opened his eyes, rushed to his post atop the hen house only to find that the sun had already risen without him. His dream world collapsed as he realized his self-delusion.

Then, to his mind came a great thought, equal to the wisdom of a sage. He said to himself, “It may not be that my crowing causes the sun to rise. But I can still awake to celebrate its rising.”

When is the last time you celebrated the morning, celebrated life? Life is so rich; the most valuable thing you have in your entire life is this day, this 24-hour period. There is nothing richer.

The most precious commodity in our world is not gold – it is time. Live your life not by the gold standard but by the time standard.

I have, right here, a glass of water. This water just wants to be water. It does not care if it is used for washing, swimming in, sailing on. I could boil it, freeze it, mix it, brew it, and the water is happy. It does not complain in any way.

But now, I present to you my other example. Here is a human being. Unlike water, it cares a lot what happens to it. The human being craves peace of mind. Many in this form, live lives of, “if only.” If only, I had this, then I could be happy. Many of us live lives of acquisition, trying to acquire more money, relationships, or things.

Today, in this place, let us anchor our lives in the joy of the satisfaction of who we are, and that we have this time to spend together. To have lives that see God everywhere we look during these 24 hours. To have lives that seek an acquisition of experiencing more of God, the sacred presence within you, and all of us here, this morning. To live lives from this higher perspective, to reorganize our priorities, and to put God first. When we do, we will be less and less likely to veer off course.

QUESTION – which one is the rich man: a Watusi tribesman, who owns ten cows, has the love of his family, the respect of his tribe, and a smile on his face? Or the multimillionaire, who is alienated from his family, emotionally burned out, and cannot remember when he last relaxed and was not in a frenzy of getting and spending?

Which of these describes the good life to you: a large stock portfolio? Six-figure salary? Winning the lottery? A sizable inheritance? Or a sense of satisfaction and well-being? This seems to be a loaded question, but do not misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with money and possessions. God has created a lavish universe for us to enjoy.

We are meant to spiritually have more. Our souls are meant to enjoy life and we are meant to allow our spiritual energy to overflow with joy. That is what life is about. Wealth, in of and itself, does not guarantee happiness.

How successful are you in life?

Today, judge your lives by the amount of joy you inject into each and every moment of the day, these 24 hours are to be enjoyed – they are a gift from God.

In hospitals, you see video monitors above the beds. The sound goes beep, beep, beep, and a line shows on the screen that the person is alive. A flat liner is when the line goes straight across the screen. That shows that the person is dead.

But what about our souls? We don’t have video monitors for our souls

BUT there are many flat liners, today, who are walking around. They are just eating, sleeping, and working – just existing – putting in their time. They do not have any beeps in their lives.

They are real zombies. Being at the bedsides of many people who were dying, making their transitions, no one ever says, “I wish I could have worked more overtime.” It is quite the opposite.

Henry Ford once asked an associate who worked around him, “Son, what are your goals?”

The young man said, “Mr. Ford, I am going to make a million dollars.”

A few days later, Henry Ford gave the young man a special pair of glasses.

Where the lenses normally are, were two silver dollars. He said, “Put them on.” The young man put the glasses on. Henry Ford said, “What can you see?”

The young man said, “Mr. Ford, I can’t see anything.”

Henry Ford said, “Exactly, money is blinding your life. You have to take the glasses off, or you are going to miss a whole lot that you are supposed to see. You are going to be blind to greater opportunities that can come your way.”

Your will is shaping your future. Whether you fail or succeed shall be no human’s doing but your own. You are the force, but you are not the force alone. God IS with you.

You can clear any obstacle before you, or you can be lost in the maze. It is your choice, and your responsibility, win or lose. Only you and your sense of God hold your keys to the destiny you will have.

I want you to have this kind of destiny. Even when things go badly for you, you will still find life good and worth living, because you know you are connected to God.

Your soul has wings. When you have a sense of God, you will fly over former problems that used to bother you. Here is what I pray for you. I pray that the same circumstance or event that would have put you into a crisis mode a year ago will feel like just a minor speed bump now, because you know you are NOT alone.

If we have a jigsaw puzzle, we can pour it out on a table, and it is a chaotic heap of similar looking bits of displaced matter. There are no clues. We look at our lives, and they are the same way, but the truth is that each piece fits into the bigger picture. Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.

This is called “Life’s Weaving.” The author is unknown.

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me;
I may not know the colors,
But God knows what they should be.
For God can view the pattern
Upon the upper side,
While I can see it only
On this, the under-side.

Sometimes God weaveth beyond my understanding,
Which seemeth strange to me;
But I will trust God’s judgment,
And work on faithfully;
‘Tis God who fills the shuttle,
God knows just what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest
And leave with God the rest.

At last, when life is ended,
With God shall I abide.
Then I may view the pattern
Upon the upper-side.
Then I shall know the reason
Why the new with the old entwined,
Was woven in the fabric
Of life that God designed.

Here are some rules for your life:

1. Your life is like a tapestry being woven by God and history on an enchanted loom. Every bobble of the shuttle has meaning. Every thread is important.

2. As a thread in the tapestry, every event in your life has some meaning and purpose for the larger pattern, even if you cannot see what it is in the moment.

3. You will discover the meaning more quickly if you direct your thoughts and focus your mind on God.

4. To aid in this, make a list of all the things you enjoy about your life. The simple pleasures: working with your hands, breathing fresh air, enjoying beautiful music.

5. When you are having dark times, sit down and write out stories: stories about your life past, when you were most enjoying yourself. Write down the meanings you now see in those stories. This will increase your faith and your confidence as you go through the present story that is now unfolding and that you cannot fully understand.

6. Ninety-four percent of us believe in God, according to a survey, but we need a larger concept of God, as we face new challenges in our lives. God is already large, but we have to make a larger concept of God in our own minds. We have old faith hanging in the closet. We need to take it out when we need it, dust it off, water it, and cause it to grow. We need to anchor our lives in a new, larger, increased faith.

7. Hard times come to a believer and a non-believer alike. But because God has promised to be with us, at all times, we CAN face even hard times in life. God is with you, and you remind yourself of this, over and over, again, during the day. God is our provider, strengthener, rescuer, and we seek that. When we seek that, we find it.

8. Consent to God in the moment, to new greater life, to new greater opportunity, by FIRST saying yes to God.

9. Imagine something with me. You are in your dining room, and you have a fine wooden table and chairs. You are sitting there at the table and you have just eaten dinner. You are smiling. You are sitting there.

You cross your legs, lean back, and all of a sudden, the back of the chair falls to the floor and breaks into smithereens. You think, “Oh no! This is the table my mother owned, and I loved this. How can this be?” You run down the street because, down the street, is a carpenter, the best in the city.

You say, “Please come to my house.” The carpenter arrives immediately, looks at the chair and says, “I’m sorry, it is beyond repair. But allow me to take it. I can make a stool out of this, and it will be better than you ever imagined.”

So the carpenter takes the chair and reshapes it into a stool. Not an ordinary stool, but he even puts in gold inlay and reshapes it into a family heirloom, a treasure, the most treasured thing in your entire home when you get it back.

That is the way it is with God. God comes instantly when we call. Maybe we have broken something into smithereens, and it cannot be repaired exactly as we would like it in our minds, but God is going to make something better out of it, if we give it to God, and if we are willing to allow that to occur.

Ephesians 4:17-24: “Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

There are so many of us who dream that if only we had money enough to go away to a south sea island, have servants to wait on us, and sit there on the beach with a drink with a little umbrella in it, then life would be good. Recently, a writer had such an experience. He had dreamed all of his life about this wonderful, perfect life. He had the money, so he gave it all up and went away to a south sea island. The natives there were completely pleasant and friendly.

Day in and day out, he lived there on the beach. Within a very short period of time, he made a real discovery about life. He discovered that he was completely bored. He was going crazy in his boredom. Then he found an old American magazine in one of the huts. It was probably 15 years old. He looked through the pages and said, “These were stories about people who were engaged in their lives.” That is where the magic is. It is not to disengage yourself, BUT TO BECOME MORE ENGAGED.

I don’t know where you think the ideal place is. Maybe you think it is on the beach on a south sea island. Maybe you think it is a small town where there is no crime or urban problems. Maybe you think it is on top of a mountain somewhere, just praying to God. But it is not. Reality, rarely, lives up to the fantasy. You do not grow unless you are engaged with life. You do not experience life fully without growing.

“What is the use of having a long life,” wrote a medieval mystic, “if there is so little improvement to show for it.” Without growth, a long life would be an extended exercise in the trivial. IN fact, it may be worse. For some people, life is a long, weary trek, punctuated by seasons of anguish, and only occasionally broken up by brief moments of happiness.

Your life is not going to be that way. I want you to experience life every second, to be so aware of God in your life, this day, that it is the best day you have ever lived.

A bold goal must capture the hearts and minds of people who do the real work. When John F. Kennedy was President, and he announced to the United States that we would put a man on the moon, a janitor at NASA was interviewed one day, and he was asked to describe his job as he swept the debris from one of the workrooms.

The janitor said, “I am helping to put a man on the moon.”

We too, need a bold goal for our lives, and we all have a need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Perhaps you will allow me to give you a suggestion.

Today, make God real in your life by seeing as God, hearing as God, thinking as God, moving as God, and enjoying as God!

Let us pray.

Dear God, I commit to You first, and then to life. I will no longer disengage. I allow You and I to walk together, hand in hand, thought in thought, life in life, and to meet everything with victory, a smile, and happiness. And so it is.

In Jesus Christ’s name and nature. Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

This ministry is founded on awareness – the awareness of God in your life of faith. We come here to join in active communion, in oneness with God. As you rest in quiet and begin to empty yourself of worry, you begin to have an infilling – a transfusion in your awareness of the Divine perfection that is God.

We say “yes” to You, God, and with Your active help.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God, You are spirited, enthusiastic, and joyous working in my life. There is nothing dull or vague about You. We ask now for a miraculous way of a Divine intervention, for You to take over, infill our human minds, and our human bodies.

Infill our souls with Your life.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

May God now fill you, and thrill you, through and through with joy, power, and vitality. May God’s presence with you be free flowing, cleansing you of all the emotional poison. May God-life come to every part of your mind and body, carried with new life moving within your body to your work, your play, and to meet your every need.

I decree, in Jesus Christ’s name, that the spirit of happiness is infilling you. It is pervading your entire being with deep delight. Everywhere you go there is a Spirit of God, a Spirit of gladness, a Spirit of praise and thanksgiving, and Divine radiation with you.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God is buoyant in you. There is nothing outside of God that can have power over God’s love in you. There is nothing that can come to you outside of you that can harm your peace of mind, because that Power that is within you, living and breathing and having life in you, as you, is all.

You have eternal life in every moment of your life. Your life expands and enriches. It is fresh. It is vital with every passing hour.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I decree for you that you are charged, recharged, and you are charged again with the current of God. You are merged, blended, and bathed in God. God in you is radiant life and endless energy. There is no more fullness, feebleness, or weakness. There is a perpetual motion of God moving in you, restoring, nurturing, creating, and recreating. A great regeneration of God is causing you to be whole, balanced, and efficient.

The life-force of God, the energy-force of God is vibrant within you. It is forever your identity. You are the embodiment of this Spirit of life, of God.

And so it has been decreed and accepted here this day.

Dear God, I thank You.

In Jesus Christ name … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one.

Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,

Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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