Bro Bob Wednesday Evening 1/4/12

Bro Bob Wednesday Evening 1/4/12

Fishers of men follow Him.

Mar 1:17  And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

Only by coming after Jesus can we attain our hearts desire and become useful fishers of men.  We are tempted to follow methods that Jesus would never have tried.  If we do this we may splash the water but we will never catch fish.  We must follow Jesus if we are ever to succeed. 

We must keep to our preaching as our master did.  Proclaim our Lord’s gospel: the full message.  Preach with His gentleness and love under His divine anointing depending on His sacred Spirit.  Running after Him not beside or before Him we will be good fishers of men.

I want to be a good fisherman.  I’m so glad to be saved.  I’m so thankful God saved me because I was so lost.  God saved me, Bob Altmiller!  I don’t have to try to be anything else.  I’m content with that and God is content with that.

Mic 6:8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

When our heart is right with God, the Bible doesn’t get old.  He has blessed this scripture to me many times since I got saved. 

We can only do justly by God’s grace, His influence in our lives, and giving Him a whole hearted service.  I love mercy and I love to be merciful to other people.  God doesn’t require anything impossible and every step He will help us along the way.

The bible is full of promises, and when our heart is right with God, every promise is ours.  He will help us every step of the journey if our heart is right.  The way is so simple that a fool need not error therein.  God will guide and direct me until I reach my heavenly home.

We haven’t arrived yet.  We will face battles and trials but we can have confidence in God that He is able to help us through every one.  It is our desire to go through every one. 

What grieves me the most about battles is that I have to go through the same one more than once.  The enemy is so sly that he will come from another approach and before we know it we are in the same battle again. 

We are going to have battles; we can have the victory over them.  Paul pressed daily toward the mark.  If we are not battling then we are sliding.

Jas 1:5  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

We can have wisdom.  True wisdom only comes from God.  There are many kinds of wisdom in the world.  God wants us to have true wisdom. 

Ask, He gives to all men liberally.  He will not hold back anything that we have need of.  If we lack anything that we have need of to serve God acceptably then we need to ask.  He is more ready to give than we are to receive.  We don’t always have to be struggling in our lives.  We can have the victory.  We can choose spiritual riches.

2Co 8:9  For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

Saints, think of it, we don’t have to have any lack!  Jesus gave His life’s blood on the cross so that we could have the victory.  We do have battles of our own making and God wants to help us through every one of them but God wants us fighting His battles. 

He wants us to stand, to stand in the spirit having the fruit of the spirit.  God wants us to grow up and be fighting His battles and not our own.

Jas 3:13  Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

Jas 3:14  But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.

Jas 3:15  This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

Jas 3:16  For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

Jas 3:17  But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

Jas 3:18  And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

We have no reason to be puffed up about anything.  Without God on our side and the blood of Jesus Christ applied to our hearts we are nothing.  We are still nothing; our own righteousness is filthy rags.  We need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness. 

Put on meekness, humbleness.  Jesus was humble.  Jesus was so humble he suffered death on the cross.  When they smote him he did not revile them again. 

He loves sinners; we need to love sinners.  He is not a respecter of persons; we cannot be a respecter of persons either.  We need to love their soul; we don’t have to love their sin. 

We don’t have to be hurt by violent people but we need to have compassion even for them. 

There is no room for bitterness, for envying or strife.  Our goal is zero strife. 

We need to listen to what we are saying: the scripture says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  He wants us to stay in the Spirit of God all the time.  This is the only place He can depend on us all the time.  Otherwise we are fighting a battle of our own making. 

Only by pride comes contention.  God hates pride. 

We want to sow in peace.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  That is us.  We don’t want to fail God.

This word of God is serious.  It is life and death.  If we don’t take it as the Spirit gives it to us, if we try to find loopholes, then it is death.  Babylon is dead.  We can sit right on these pews and be dead.  If we do things that the word condemns, we cannot handle it; it is death. 

I sawed logs with a man that said, “You church of God people are alright but you just take the word too seriously.”  I told him that it is life and death we must take it seriously. 

He was to be called Jesus for He would save his people from their sin, not in their sin, but from their sin.

If we are thinking on things that are pure, just, lovely, and right then we will be talking on those things. 

God’s children are peacemakers and are gracious.  There is no people in this world that are more gracious than the saints.  Gracious like our perfect example is gracious.

Gracious – favorable, kind, friendly, as an envoy met with gracious reception, benevolent, having a disposition to do good, possessing love to mankind, a desire to promote other’s prosperity and happiness, disposed to forgive offences and impart unmerited blessings. 

The bible instructs to “in honor prefer one another”.  We want to be quick to forgive.  Misunderstandings will happen but the saints are quick to forgive and don’t carry a root of bitterness around.  The scripture is clear on how many times we are to forgive. 

I sometimes have a hard time talking.  I sometimes feel that people are not hearing what I am saying.  I had a real phobia of crowds when I was younger.  We cannot let that hinder us.  We want people to question us and we want everyone to hear what we have to say.

Bro Gary says that he has a learning disability.  I do too.  That doesn’t matter really as long as we are doing what God wants us to do.  We need the love of God working in our lives.

Ecc 10:12  The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.

We need to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He is the one that we measure our self to.  We don’t measure ourselves by ourselves but by the Lord Jesus Christ.  What an example!  He did not revile again.

1Pe 2:21  For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

I’m so glad that we can follow His steps.  The only way we can is by having the grace of God ruling and reigning in our lives.  Jesus was humble; He made of himself no reputation, but took the form of a servant.   

We need to take the form of a servant as Jesus did.  He is our example. 

Php 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Php 2:6  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

Php 2:7  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Php 2:8  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

We must walk in humility to receive of the grace of God.  1 Peter 5:5

We have a wonderful example to follow!  He is not an impossible example to follow if we have the grace of God ruling in our lives.  JOY, Jesus, others then you: put yourself last and spell Joy.  This is the example that Jesus left.  He put himself last. 

We have an adversary that is sly and will do his best to trip us up and throw us in turmoil and confusion.  As soon as it starts we can know that it is not from God.  God is not in turmoil. 

The enemy will work through imaginations if we will let him.  We don’t have to stand for it.  We need to be serious about thoughts that come to our mind.  We need to be ready to cast them down.  We don’t have to pack them around.  We can annihilate them.  We can mortify or totally destroy them by the grace of God. 

We don’t have to have our backpack full.  We need to be serious when the enemy brings things our way; we cast them down and annihilate them.  We can have a pure hatred against the works of the devil.  We hate sin.  We need to get serious about the works that the enemy tries to pull on us.

1Pe 2:21  For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

Jesus did no sin.