A Word from Pastor Dennis – July 19, 2020

35. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing  every disease and sickness. 36. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”   (Matthew 9:35-37)  

3. ….but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4. Perseverance character; and character, hope. 5. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:3-6)

What We Should Know

We should know that God’s timing is always dead on.  As His ministry commenced, He travelled among the towns and villages seeing for Himself the emotionally weakened condition of the people who seemed to have given up hope.  They didn’t have caretaking facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes. When they became ill, they just died. So, He brought them hope as He healed every disease and sickness. He acknowledged the depth of the need and began recruiting His apostles to carry on the work. 

Today, we have inherited that responsibility as we share the Good News of Jesus Christ through our lives and our Christian witness.  We live in a world of pain and suffering and death and yet, we have that blessed promise from Paul in Romans 8:28….. “All things come to good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose”. 

Jesus realized the universal need for the Gospel and that it was just too much for Him to handle on His own in human form.  Thus, He sent the Holy Spirit in His place on the Day of Pentecost to abide within each one of us to teach us and guide us along the path of God’s will. 

We should know what He meant when He declared in Romans 8:18…. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”  Thanks to His sacrifice, we have the ultimate victory over sin and death.