3-29-2016

 Good Morning All!!

           John 20: 30-31; “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

     We are just getting started with planting season around here.  At a Bible study earlier this month with a group of farmers, I asked them what they would do if I could produce a newspaper or whatever document they needed that showed in six months the price of their wheat was going to be double what it is today.  Somehow I transported myself into the future and brought back a newspaper dated six months from today and in the business section the price of wheat was twice what it is today.  What would they do?  First they decided not to sell the wheat they still had.  They thought they might plant more wheat.  A few brave ones thought they would buy some wheat and then sell it in six months.

    Then I asked them this.  You still have that newspaper showing you that in six months wheat will be twice the price; what if in 2 months the price of wheat is half of what it is now?  They responded that as long as they had the first newspaper they would wait it out.  What if in four months it was only a quarter of the price it is now?  The “experts” are predicting the end of wheat farming as we know it.  They predict wide scale fall out and bankruptcy throughout all wheat growing regions of the world.  Now what; what would you do?  Your neighbors are worried, your banker is worried, the people who you bought the wheat from earlier and the people who watched you plant extra wheat are laughing at you; they think you are an idiot.  The wheat farmers answered they would sit tight and wait because they held the proof of their decision.  Rather than worry, they figured they would sleep well and tell their neighbors to just hold on and watch for the good times to come.

    That is our verse “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  You have that newspaper, we call it the Bible.  It was written so that you could have the confidence and certainty of your salvation.  You have the victory and nothing changes that.  Even when events occur that may look like it is going against us, even when family and friends think our faith is a waste of time, we still have the certainty of the good news of Jesus.  We have life; we have the proof of our faith.  We know that Jesus rose again from the grave and gave to us this victory and this life.  We can rest confident in this truth.  We are the victors because of Jesus.  We know the end; we know the ultimate victory is ours we only have to wait it out.  We wait, patiently as we can, knowing that God is always faithful to his promises.

Father in heaven, you have given us the certainty of your promise in your Word.  Through it we know that our salvation is certain in Jesus guard us with your loving arms that we may always know your peace.  In the precious name of our risen Savior we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret